


now i scream ‘til the end of the day

by stars_inthe_sky



Series: tell me where your strength lies [3]
Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator - All Media Types, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Terminator (1984)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Canon, Alternate Timelines, Apocalypse, Bechdel Test Pass, Brother-Sister Relationships, Families of Choice, Family, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Series, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, Time Travel, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2115477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_inthe_sky/pseuds/stars_inthe_sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“This is all I am, John. I don’t know how to do anything but fight this war. I don’t know how to be a person outside of this life. I don’t know what I would want or who I would be. And I can’t think—I can’t even try to imagine anything else until this mission is over. I just need you to tell me how to stop Skynet.”</i>
</p><p>Sarah had asked Savannah to take care of their boys, and she entrusted all of them with the rest of humanity. But she never did say how it was supposed to end. (Third in a series)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 2026

** 2026 **

Savannah’s least favorite thing at Eagle Rock is changing diapers, but it’s also the most common chore. Untreatable diseases and injuries seem to kill as many soldiers as Skynet does these days, and people persist in reproducing despite their shortened life expectancies, so the bunker is full of war orphans. Savannah sometimes wonders if she should feel a kinship with the squalling infants and wide-eyed preteens—she’d been a helpless orphan once, too—but mostly she sees them as tasks to be completed and future soldiers born into this fight.

Early on, after Judgment Day when most people were still living underground, some people had protested the idea of teenage soldiers and child trainees. Savannah, having first learned to defend herself at age eight, had never been among them and found the debate a waste of time. She remembers being scared as a kid; learning to fight had been the difference. She figures that the first generation of post-Skynet parents had been scared, too, but that had seemed to her like the opposite of a good excuse to keep their kids from training.

A decade and change later, plenty of people are still scared, but no one asks why ten-year-olds need guns anymore.

The latest baby’s mess has already soaked through his diaper. Savannah lets her hands move on autopilot and tries to imagine what Sarah would do. Sarah had always had an improbable soft spot for little kids—which had never stopped surprising Savannah, even though she’d been a firsthand beneficiary of that kindness. But Savannah had never seen her with a baby, or, for that matter, any kid younger than the four-year-old Sydney Fields had been when she and Lauren came to stay at the lighthouse.

To the best of her knowledge, Sarah only ever really dealt with one baby—John. She knows how much Sarah had loved her son, but had she always? Had she ever looked at him and wondered what would separate him from any other kid? If she had known, back in 1984, that she would raise him only to lose him over and over, would she have felt the same? She’d said the knowledge of John’s future had been her motivation over the years, but he hadn’t even existed in the run-up to J-Day, nor in the years that followed. Why couldn’t Sarah’s own role be enough for humanity’s future? Knowing what was coming, and knowing you had a part to play in saving the world—who could walk away from that, or treat such an important destiny irresponsibly?

Sarah certainly hadn’t.

Then again, John had.

Savannah never understood why he’d stepped into the future—Sarah hadn’t either, but in the end, she’d been so sick and he hadn’t known where the metal he followed had gone, so it hardly mattered to her. They had just concentrated on keeping her comfortable and cared for.

But they had buried Sarah nearly three months ago, and in spite of Savannah’s best efforts, it’s starting to matter now. Unable to turn around without seeing her mother’s ghost, she’d bolted from Serrano Point as soon as Rachel Periello had agreed to take over Admin. Eagle Rock had seemed like as good a place to land as any—Sydney made a place for her without asking a single question, and though Savannah has never had a particular desire to care for the youngest and most infirm members of the Resistance, new and different tasks had seemed like a good distraction from the gaping hole in her life.

It works in part, but too often her mind wanders—if not to Sarah and the constant reminders that she was gone, then to John and whatever game he’d been trying to play, or to Kyle, who’d lost the love of his life and been left with a mostly-grown son he hardly knew in one cruel stroke of fate. Or to the pair of machines with too much knowledge of all of them wandering out in the wasteland somewhere. None of this is particularly comforting.

Lauren, at least, visits every few weeks to see her sister and update Savannah on whatever’s happening at Serrano. Savannah is more grateful than ever for the older girl’s emotional support; they can lean on each other even when they hardly mention Sarah, and, for Savannah, that’s more healing than poor Kyle’s wordless grief or the vigorous training and obsessive pursuit of Allison Young that John has been cycling through.

It’s a long spring, but Savannah can’t figure out if she’s ready for it to end or not.

***

Her sad, quiet little life at Eagle Rock comes to an abrupt end in June.

Savannah’s overseeing a roomful of sleeping babies one morning when Sydney materializes in the doorway and quietly informs her she has a visitor. Sydney starts tending to a suddenly-fussy boy with practiced ease and without another word, so Savannah finishes swaddling her current charge, cleans her hands, and heads toward the lobby-like entry hall of the bunker.

Derek Reese is waiting for her, looking more hulking and massive than usual and especially out-of-place in a setting like this. He relaxes with a faint smile when he sees her.

“I was worried you wouldn’t want to see me.”

“Syd didn’t tell me who was visiting. Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”

He shrugs. “Seemed like you couldn’t get out of Serrano fast enough, a few months ago.”

“That wasn’t about _you_.”

“I didn’t think it was. I just figured you’d know what I was here for and not want to hear it.”

It takes a few seconds, but his meaning clicks. “You want me to come back?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, wringing his hands uncomfortably. “But not because—look, Periello’s got your Admin people set. If you’re not interested in going back to that, you probably wouldn’t have to…”

“What do you want? I’ve got shit to do.” Savannah makes a face, realizing her choice of words too late. “Literally, probably.”

“It’s about Kyle. Well, Kyle and John, but Kyle’s why I’m here.” At her questioning look, he continues, “Look, I’m trying my best to help, but it’s not like after we lost Mom and Dad on J-Day—it’s…there’s not really anything concrete I can do for him, you know? He can survive okay; he’s just so…sad. And I don’t know what to do about that.”

“And you think I do? You saw me when they were in Century—I can barely—”

“Actually…I thought you might be able to help with John. He’s—I don’t know, he and Kyle have been practically clinging to each other lately. I get that, I guess, but Kyle’s barely older than that kid is. He’s not ready to be anybody’s stepdad. He knows that, I think, maybe they both do, but he’s not going to leave Sarah’s kid on his own. And the kid—I don’t think he means to, but he’s making it worse.”

“How do you mean?”

“He’s smart, and he acts like he knows more than everybody else put together, but he’s, what, seventeen? And he’s…not from here. At all. So nobody knows what to make of him, least of all Kyle—and Kyle’s the one who got stuck looking out for him.”

Savannah nods wearily—that was how she’d left them, and part of why she’d fled. “So…that sucks, I get it, but it’s not like I know John any better than Kyle does. I mean, Sarah barely ever talked about him when I was growing up. I only met him for a sec before he, um, left, and I was, like, eight at the time.”

“I just—I figured maybe you’d know how to relate to him a little better?” Derek ran a hand through his hair. “She raised both of you, right? So you’ve got that in common. And I know you’re probably—well, I just thought maybe you could help him settle in a little better and take some of the weight off Kyle. And maybe being around them would be good for you, too?” He says the last bit like a question, as if it’s only just occurred to him as a persuasive point, and he’s realized how desperate that sounds partway through the sentence. “Please? Just come talk to them, or…I don’t know. Anything. Leave again if you need to, I just—I didn’t know what else to do. Who else to…ask.”

She’s known Derek for eight years now, give or take, and she’s only ever seen him get emotional when it had to do with Kyle. He’s too levelheaded, and Eagle Rock is too far from Serrano Point for him to have made this trip for something minor or imagined. And, if nothing else, she owes it to Kyle to check in on him and John. It’s what Sarah had wanted her to do.

“Fine, I’ll come. Let me just tell Sydney and grab my stuff.”

“What—really? Now?”

“Yeah, they’ll be fine. Should just be a few minutes. I’ll catch a transport back with you.”

***

They end up walking the first stretch of the ten miles back to Serrano and catching a ride from the next bunker along the tunnel route. The monotony of their otherwise silent walk is punctuated by engineers doing repairs and reinforcements on the walls and, more frequently, by skinny tunnel-reared kids skittering out of nowhere in pursuit of a rodent or an unlikely tuber poking through the floor. The brass does its best to ration food supplies fairly, and it’s not as if the soldiers at Serrano eat any better than anyone else does. It’s just a question of getting used to being hungry most of the time, and, as she’s learned at Eagle Rock, growing kids can never seem to eat enough.

She’s never paid any attention to tunnel rats until they show up for training or in her rosters, but then a stocky blonde girl streaked with dirt crashes headlong into Savannah’s shins and sends them both tumbling. Savannah picks herself up and dusts off her rear, but the girl stays huddled on the ground like she’s waiting to be kicked in punishment. Savannah taps her on the shoulder and offers her a hand up, which she hesitantly accepts.

“I—I’m sorry I ran into you, miss. My mom said to be careful of the real soldiers, and I was trying to, I just thought I saw—” She stops mid-sentence at Savannah and Derek’s stare and swallows.

“It’s fine,” Savannah says, as comfortingly as she can manage. “Nothing hurt, and,” she twists around and digs a stick of jerky out of her pack. “Here. To make up for the rat or whatever you were after.”

The girl doesn’t even hesitate—her teeth are in the jerky before Savannah even lets go of it—and she mumbles thanks around a mouthful of dried beef. Savannah smiles weakly and turns to go, but the girl grabs her arm.

“I don’t have any more—”

“No, I—I don’t mean to be greedy, miss. Just wanted to ask—are you…are you her?” She talks fast, and her mouth is full of beef jerky, so Savannah’s not sure if she’s misheard the girl.

“Her who?”

“Sarah Connor—people were saying she died, but I saw your hair, and I thought—people always talked about how she saved everyone, and I remembered something about big, long, red hair—”

Savannah’s breath catches in her throat, and only Derek’s steadying hand on her shoulder prevents the sudden dizziness from turning into a panic attack. “No, she—she’s dead, like they said. I’m her daughter. Savannah Weaver. People must’ve confused us or something.” The girl’s eyes get even wider, and she stops chewing just long enough for her jaw to drop.

Savannah wants little more than to get out of here, but instead she asks, with forced politeness borne of three months of babysitting, “What’s your name?”

“Riley—Riley Dawson, miss.”

It’s Savannah’s turn to be shocked; she tries to hide it, but the girl notices enough to ask, “Miss?”

Derek’s turned away to flag down a passing transport, and, for a breath, Savannah debates taking a chance and telling the girl to stay away from a woman named Jesse Flores. But Sarah’s voice echoes in her head: _don’t waste the good in this timeline_. So all she says is: “Don’t worry about it, Riley.”

The girl nods, still a little dazed, and Savannah jumps away to follow Derek onto the transport and back home. She tries not to think about the encounter—it’s what Sarah would’ve done—but she can’t help worrying if she’s irrevocably screwed up the timeline, either by creating something new or simply altering Riley’s own somehow.

***

Derek rushes off to some duty or another as soon as they reach Serrano Point with a simple thanks. Kyle should be on his usual sentry round, but Savannah instead heads straight to the mid-level suite where the brass usually congregates and operates; sure enough, Marty Bedell is there, conveniently alone and crouched over a map. Savannah can make out the label, “downtown Los Angeles, 2005,” but the original cartography has been all but obliterated by hand-scrawled updates and indications of recent troop movements.

It’s several seconds before Marty looks up, though he seems more relieved than surprised to see her. “So you’re back? Good.”

“It’s a temporary thing, I think.”

“What’s the plan?”

“When John showed up last year, you told me—come tell you when he’s ready to be John Connor.”

“Is he? How do you—? I thought you were out at Eagle Rock, and I know he’s been here.”

“I was, and he is. But I talked to Derek Reese just now—and I think if you don’t let him off-leash, you’re gonna lose whatever it is you were hoping to get from him. Or he’ll go rogue and get himself killed.”

“What’d you have in mind?”

“I’d have to talk to him, but…he came through time because he was chasing a lead with some metal. Sarah never knew enough about the whole thing to act on it, and by the time he got here she was too sick to do much of anything. And since he got here—has he even left Serrano? So who knows what happened to the lead, but if I were him, that’s where I’d start.”

“You think we should send a seventeen-year-old out to search for some metal that may or may not still be around and may or may not be useful…on his own?”

“Of course not. I’ll go with him.”

That takes Marty by surprise. “Really? No offense—I’ve seen you in action—but it’s been years since you were on a long-term field mission, hasn’t it?”

“I can handle it. Anyway,” she adds, recalling how Marty had met John and John’s uncle in his past, “I doubt anyone’ll be able to stop Kyle Reese from coming with us, too. You know.”

“Fair enough.” He falls silent for several seconds and makes a few slashes in pencil on his map. “Okay, I’ll bite. Check in with Alyssa for supplies—not just food, whatever else you need—and she’ll keep it quiet. Make sure Admin knows to take them off the rosters—well, you would know to do that, I guess—and one of you come talk to me before you leave so at least I know where you’re thinking of going. And Weaver—I’m trusting you with this, so make sure he’s up to it.”

“Deal,” she says.

***

She finds John off-duty in the barracks, shirtless and pressed casually against an underwear-clad Allison Young, both looking more at ease than she’s felt in years. It’s hard not to resent him for that, but she supposes it isn’t his fault that getting laid is a coping mechanism she hasn’t cycled through recently.

Both turn to look at her, startled by the unexpected intrusion. Allison smiles and chirps hello while John eyes her warily. Savannah decides she doesn’t have time for stupid teenage antics and says, “Allison, would you mind giving us a moment?”

The younger girl glances at John and turns back to Savannah. “Uh, sure. I should probably eat something before I get back to the kennels…see you later, John!” She pecks him on the cheek and leaves, a ball of clothing under one arm and boots in the opposite hand.

John pulls on a shirt and starts lacing up his own boots; without looking at Savannah, he asks, “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“John Henry and the shapeshifter.”

He freezes momentarily. “I told you, I don’t know what happened to them after we came through.”

“Want to find out?” At his blank stare, she explains her conversation with Marty. “We can be out of here as soon as Admin covers your slots.”

“We?”

“You, me, I’m assuming Kyle will want to come.”

“Probably…but why do you want to?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I can’t stand being here, and I can’t change another fucking diaper at Eagle Rock.”

“Look, I like the idea, it’s just…I don’t know you. At all. I get that you meant a lot to Mom, but it’s not like you’re my sister or anything.”

“You think I’m doing this for you? I barely know you. All I know about you is what she told me: You saw this duty, this future ahead of you, and you ran. You left her behind, and you abandoned the rest of us, too—everyone you were supposed to protect. So I don’t give two shits if you want to go on some suicidal spirit quest or just stay here and fuck your life away. But for whatever reason, Sarah died still believing in you. And if she were here, she’d be the first person out the door with you. But she’s not here, and I am, and doing what she would’ve done is all I know how to do right now.”

Savannah pauses for breath, and when he doesn’t speak, she adds, “Not to mention—did you forget that one of those machines was supposed to be my friend at one point, too? The other spent over a year _impersonating my birth mother_. I’ve got reasons that have nothing to do with you for wanting to know what they’re after.”

John blinks, nonplussed. “How long have you been waiting to get that off your chest?”

“A while. Put some clothes on and go see if your girlfriend can spare a dog for a couple of weeks. I’m going to go check on food and ammo. And a first aid kit.” Without waiting for an answer, she turns on her heel to leave, pausing only to respond to John’s query of, “What about Kyle? And Derek?”

“You can talk to Kyle if you see him before I do. Derek’s not going to be interested, trust me, and he might pitch a fit at the idea of Kyle going.”

She’s almost out the door before she hears John mutter, “You’re probably right.”

***

They’re out in the field by the next morning, John wide-eyed and determined and followed by a still-laconic Kyle. Savannah had found him before John, and it’s clear why Derek was worried—the younger Reese’s customary optimism and openness were gone, replaced by a stoic resolution to do…something. Avenging Sarah’s death isn’t really an option, but Kyle—and Savannah and most of their contemporaries for that matter—hadn’t known anything but fighting back since puberty, and action is all he has in his arsenal. John isn’t any more talkative than his father, but he’s clearly heartened by having a mission (and however Allison had sent him off the night before).

Kate Brewster’s kennel wasn’t able to spare any dogs, but they each have a backpack full of a few weeks’ worth of food, explosives, and medical supplies, and they’re armed to the teeth. John had managed to confer with Marty the night before and produced a search plan for their trio, based on the Resistance’s current intelligence and John’s best guesses as to where their missing metal may have been headed, given what he’d learned in the past.

It’s been a long time since Savannah last ventured out into the field for more than a short mission, and it’s an incongruously sunny day. She inhales the morning air—it’s not exactly fresh, but it’s less stale outside than in the tunnels or at Eagle Rock—and gears up for a new chapter.

***

They settle into a routine fairly quickly; most days are spent wandering the wasteland and trying to avoid notice, while they spend nights sleeping in shifts and occasionally hunting when they come across the small game that even Judgment Day hadn’t eradicated completely.

Nobody talks much beyond the necessities. With Sarah gone and the wound of her death still raw, the three of them have also lost the primary thing they had in common, and none of them are built for small talk. She starts to see that Kyle and John—unnoticed by the other—frequently seem about to say something, but neither ever does.

Every few weeks, they return to Serrano Point to resupply and check in with Marty and the others they want to see—John with Allison, Kyle with Derek, and Savannah with Lauren. They don’t stay long; the base doesn’t feel like home anymore to Savannah or Kyle, and for John it never was. If Marty is frustrated by their lack of progress, he doesn’t let it show, and Alyssa and Lauren make sure they have what they need to continue their wild goose chase for metal that apparently doesn’t want to be found yet.

They don’t encounter a single human, but Skynet artillery pops up almost daily. Savannah and John prove their abilities to each other within days, and they all learn quickly how to spot the spider-like tetrapod scouts and to hear the buzz of aerostat wasps that the enemy has been favoring lately. John teaches himself how to disable and dismantle everything they find and tinkers with the parts in the evenings when they dare to build a small fire to cook over. At one point, he manages to create a means of detecting nearby machinery, which helps them anticipate and disable the artillery, but there’s still no sign of John Henry or the shapeshifter. It’s not clear how they’re even going to recognize the shapeshifter, especially without a dog—though she hopes John’s detectors will do the trick, or that John Henry will lead them to it.

It’s also clear that even John doesn’t really know where to look, but their wandering and guesswork are preferable to the usual routines back at the base. It’s been years—since before Serrano and even before she’d met the Reese boys—since Savannah has lived constantly on the move, always alert and never clean or at ease or well-rested. The first couple of years post-Judgment Day had been like that, and she’s never missed that time, but now? Now she feels like she could thrive out here; those years had been tempered with hunger and the uncertainty of their survival and Sarah’s centrality to the growing band of survivors, and she had forgotten how invigorating it could be to leave behind the monotony of daily life behind.

For the first time since Sarah’s death, since her illness, since she and Kyle and the others had nearly been lost at Century, Savannah feels like she can almost breathe again. It’s unnerving, some days, to think of going on without Sarah. It doesn’t seem like Kyle will ever be able to, especially knowing how his personal future ends, whereas John, though still hurting, has seemingly been prepared to lose her for most of his life. Savannah falls somewhere in the middle—the loss is a constant ache, but she makes herself remember her watchwords. _Be strong, be brave, trust Sarah._ Following that mantra had kept her alive for this long, and it would have to keep working.

 _We do what she’d do_ , Savannah had said at her graveside _._ And so they do.

***

In early autumn, they pick a random route and head east. Their original path is blocked by a chasm that wasn’t on any of their maps, and there’s no way to know if a recent earthquake or Skynet is responsible. On the third day, a low-flying H-K aerial finds them; Savannah’s sharpshooting and John’s pipe bomb take it down, but not before Kyle catches a laser burn to the left forearm. John manages to reprogram the thing—or at least he says he has—to scramble their location before they destroy it. Even so, they take an extra-circuitous route afterwards, just to be safe, and they move slower than usual because Savannah and John have to carry part of Kyle’s load.

Kyle tries to distract all of them with what he describes as road-trip games—Twenty Questions, I Spy, and so on. Savannah gets less interested with each of his prompts, and, eventually, he focuses on just trying to connect with John. They’re both trying so hard for the other, she realizes; John’s eagerness to please is nakedly apparent, and it’s not his fault that Kyle’s questions don’t really take into account how different John’s childhood was from his own, nor that Kyle’s terrible at feigning cheer. It just gets old quickly.

“Favorite band?”

“I…think I liked a few Guns ‘n’ Roses songs from when I was in foster care? I had this friend who was pretty into punk, but I never found out what happened to him after the T-1000 chased me out of that arcade.”

“Uh, favorite class in school?”

“Pass. I barely went to school enough to drop out.”

“Prom date?”

“I never made it that far.”

“TV show?”

“Pass again.”

“First kiss?”

“Um, 1997, right before the T-1000 thing. Redhead named Kate. Never saw her again.”

“Because of the T-1000 thing?”

“Yeah. We were kind of on the run after that. Again. And then we jumped, so…”

“Right. So, uh…did you have a girlfriend or anything after you jumped?”

“Kyle,” Savannah interrupts. Apparently Sarah hadn’t told him about Riley or whatever the hell Cameron was supposed to be to John, but that wasn’t a book that needed opening right now. “We didn’t have normal childhoods. Stop trying to pretend otherwise. You’re starting to give me a headache.” John turns to glare at her.

Kyle just looks hurt. “I was thirteen on J-Day, you know. You guys had lives before that, too, so—”

“It’s fine,” John says quickly. “You were just trying to…get to know me. Or whatever. Sorry I don’t have better answers for you…”

“It’s okay—should’ve figured. I mean, Sarah…well. Yeah. Sorry, it’s kind of a messy family tree here. You’ve probably got more in common with Savannah than with Derek and me.”

“More people and places, fewer training montages. And less quality bonding time, it sounds like.” He says the last bit like an accusation, like it’s Savannah's fault he disappeared and his mother chose to take her in.

Savannah rolls her eyes. “Less metal on my end, too, at least until J-Day. Can you just fucking talk to each other, though? You’ve got plenty in common besides her, and if you weren’t related, you wouldn’t be nervous. Wasn’t there supposed to be a timeline where you’re, like, old enough to be Kyle’s father, and you just kept the secrets and gave Kyle the picture and…You really think anything you say to each other now is going to be worse than that?”

“You didn’t say she was _that_ blunt,” John says to Kyle.

Kyle shrugs. “She learned from the best. What’d you expect?”

“You were talking about me?” Savannah stares at them both.

“He asked,” Kyle explained. “While you were at Eagle Rock. It’s not like he heard stories about you like you did about him.”

“So, what did you say about me?”

Kyle is suddenly very interested in the placement of his boots, so John says, “He said you were prickly but loyal as fuck to the mission. And that you meant a lot to Mom. And were basically a younger version of her. And that you don’t really play well with others.”

“That’s…probably mostly true.”

“Why not? Play nice with people, I mean. I get why you don’t like me, but…”

“Why bother? Nice doesn’t save lives. It doesn’t do shit against Skynet. No one would’ve listened to me when I was thirteen and trying to keep people in order if I was worried about being _nice_. And I don’t not like you. I just don’t get you. Why you left. Whether we should be waiting for you to save everybody. I want to know what you know that the rest of us don’t and how we’re supposed to finish this.”

“I don’t know! You don’t think I’ve been trying to figure that out my whole life? This trip thing was your idea! I just…I just wanted to be doing _something_.”

“Yeah, well, so did I. Mediating your totally unnecessary family drama isn’t what I came to do.” At this point, they’ve stopped walking and are just yelling at each other.

“Okay, just—just try to spend thirty seconds using your imagination. You lost both your parents, right? Your real ones, I mean—if one of them was suddenly here, now, after _so long_ —do you have any idea what you’d say to them?”

Savannah stares at him. She hasn’t given a moment’s thought to Lachlan and Catherine—the real Catherine, anyway—Weaver in years, and honestly doesn’t have a good answer, so she stammers, “I don’t know—but I wouldn’t be trying to play along with questions about Saturday morning cartoons, at least!”

“What is your problem?” John advances a step toward her. He’s barely taller than she is and as slight as Kyle, but his whole demeanor has shifted—and suddenly she thinks she can see what all those Resistance soldiers in all those other timelines did. He’s not scary so much as unnervingly confident and in control of himself; he’s not cowed by her aggression the way most people are, but he isn’t threatening either. The combination is unexpected—it’s not a reaction she recognizes from either of his parents—and it leaves her at even more of a loss for words than his last question. She finds herself actually backing away from him.

“Guys!” Kyle interrupts. “I’m not even sure what you’re fighting about, but get over it. Savannah, we’re trying our best over here, just deal. John, back off, you made your choices and that’s _fine_ , but she’s allowed to have opinions. And we’re _all_ frustrated—we’re all living in this hellscape, fighting a war no one on either side knows how to win, and we all miss her. And I really can’t deal with your twisted, funhouse-mirror version of sibling rivalry or whatever this is. So, please, just shut up, pretend like we’re actually doing something meaningful, and keep walking.”

***

The uncomfortable stalemate comes to an unexpected end the following afternoon when they stumble onto a crumbling and overgrown arena sunk into the ground. Kyle lights up like a power grid and races down the bleachers, jumping over debris and plastic seats without a second thought. It’s the most emotive he’s been in ages, and he seems so excited that Savannah and John follow him down without questioning it.

Savannah’s never been to a professional sporting event in her life, but she knows what a baseball field looks like, even one covered in dust and dead things. Kyle runs across the pitch and actually hoots out loud, waving a flat piece of dirty rubber in the air. John has the same reaction Savannah does—to whirl around, rifle ready, in case Kyle’s uncharacteristic lack of caution draws unwanted attention.

Nothing emerges, though, and they cautiously approach Kyle, who’s kneeling in the dirt and laughing helplessly while tears stream down his face.

“Where are we, exactly?” John asks, finally. “Do you recognize this place?”

Kyle seems to come back to himself—albeit a happier version of himself than he’s been lately—and shakes his head in disbelief. “You don’t know? Either of you? It’s Dodger Stadium! Seriously?”

This means next to nothing to Savannah, who shrugs. “The…baseball team? My birth parents were Scottish, and Sarah was more interested in things like protecting us from killer robots, so sports didn’t really come up.”

“Fair enough,” he says, apparently too absorbed to notice that she’d mentioned Sarah by name. “God, I can’t believe this place is still standing! Home plate and everything!”

“Oh,” John says, looking around with much more interest. “We should get out of here, though—we’re sitting ducks out in the open like this.”

Kyle grins. “John, it’s a major league baseball stadium. There’s all kinds of stuff underneath the grandstands. I bet we can do some scavenging. Maybe there’re med kits in the training rooms or vitamins or something…there’s probably clothing around, too, and maybe other supplies. Anyway, it’ll be dark in a few hours, so we can see about bunking down in one of the dugouts or something…”

“You’re just making excuses to keep poking around,” Savannah says. “No offense, but we shouldn’t be taking extra risks if we don’t need to.”

“Would—do you think there’d be cleaning supplies here? Like, in a janitor’s closet or something?” John interrupts. “That would actually be worth staying for, if there’s anything we could make explosives with…”

Savannah admits that he has a point, and they end up doing a thorough sweep of Dodger Stadium. The only signs of life are vermin and plants—Savannah bags three squirrels and an enormous rat within twenty minutes—but Kyle turns out to be right about supplies. Everything in the gift shops is caked with dust but otherwise in good condition, and the kitchens turn up usable cookware, though everything that was once edible has spoiled. There’s a wealth of first-aid supplies and nutritional supplements scattered around the facilities, as well as multiple janitorial closets, all fully stocked.

They take note the stadium’s coordinates so a scavenging team can find it again and return to the dugout with everything deemed worth taking immediately—the cleaning supplies John wanted, a fistful of lighters, two fresh handguns, ammo and a bulletproof vest from the security office, and a fleece blanket to replace the one Savannah had needed to cut into bandages a week earlier because she’d forgotten her period would come on this trip (the boys had pretended not to notice).

By dusk, Kyle is building a fire while Savannah takes inventory. John starts mixing the chemicals he’d found earlier, and Savannah settles in alongside John once she finishes her task, assembling plastique on automatic. They don’t talk.

Kyle watches them curiously while he fans the flames into something they can grill the vermin over. “What are you making?”

John gives him a funny look. “Nitroglycerin, basically. Explosives? You don’t know how to…?”

“Should I?”

“Well, it’s just…you taught Mom how to make pipe bombs. Or you will teach her, I guess. In ’84.”

Kyle nods, all business again. “Show me.”

Savannah gestures to a container next to the PVC pipes. “Start with the Drano.”

They end up agreeing to take a rest day at the stadium—it’s not as if they have any specific leads to follow at the moment, so they might as well rest up for the trek back to Serrano Point to report on the supply caches they’d found. Savannah wakes up midmorning, feeling groggier than usual thanks to an abnormally long sleep shift, and she finds the other two debating the finer points of C-4 assembly.

Together, the three of them do another sweep of the premises and hunt down lunch, then spend the afternoon doing clothing repairs, debating return routes, and making more explosives. It’s a much-needed respite, and Savannah actually catches herself relaxing a little, even though none of them talk much.

The sun is just beginning to dip down in the sky when Kyle sighs, rocks back onto his heels, and asks, “I need a break. Either of you want to throw a ball around for a few minutes?” He produces a pair of mitts and a shrink-wrapped baseball so clean and shiny it looks almost like a light bulb against the wasted landscape. “Grabbed these out of the gift shop yesterday.”

Savannah shakes her head and returns to her fuse, but John perks up a little. “I forgot that was a thing for you.”

“Forgot?”

“No, I—I mean, uh. Well. Derek, he…for my birthday, in 2007, he took me to this park and got me ice cream. I thought—anyway, it turned out it was a park where you guys used to hang out. We watched you play catch. It was…nice. I don’t know; Mom usually would just get me a cake and a flak jacket or something.”

“That was good of him. I would’ve been, what, five?” A ghost of a smile flickers on Kyle’s face as John nods. “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s do this.”

Savannah’s fairly sure John couldn’t look any happier if a naked machine with Allison Young’s features were to appear in front of them. He follows Kyle a few yards onto the field and promptly misses the first couple of tosses before getting into the rhythm of it. It’s nice to watch, almost peaceful.

“So, is baseball something I should remember to bring up with the pipe bombs in ‘84?” Kyle asks.

“I don’t think so…”

“Probably for the best—that’s shaping up to be a pretty busy two days,” he says casually. John looks so stunned by the tone that he almost misses Kyle’s next throw; Kyle notices and adds, “At least I get laid in the middle there, right?”

The crude line is uncharacteristic for him, but somehow it breaks a dam. John and Savannah groan simultaneously, and Savannah moans, “I really don’t need that image in my head—again.” Kyle chuckles at their mock discomfort, and suddenly they’re all laughing.

Later, after John’s asleep and Kyle’s taking first watch, Savannah comments to him, “You seem awfully comfortable with the whole time-traveling and dying thing.”

He shrugs. “John’s got enough on his shoulders. He doesn’t need me whining about this thing that he’s already had to carry around his whole life. And Sarah, too. I don’t know shit about parenting, as you’ve probably noticed, but I got that much figured out. Besides…I mean, I don’t love the whole dying-early thing, but I never figured any of us for dying of old age. And if I get to see her again? Keep her safe? Do the thing that she did for all of us? There are worse ways to go…and I _do_ get laid.”

“That was really poetic there for a sec, Kyle,” Savannah snorts. “And, um, sorry about the other day. I’m just…I hate not _knowing_. But, for what it’s worth—well, I don’t know shit about parenting, either, but I think you’re on the right track.”

She can only just see his smile in the dying firelight.

***

Back at Serrano Point, they disperse for a few days of turnaround time. John gets sucked into seemingly endless conversations with Marty, Jorge Cortes, and some of the others about what they found at the stadium, while Kyle is in charge of wheedling their next round of supplies out of various people.

Savannah ends up shadowing Lauren on duty, which gives her the chance to both see her friend and learn a little emergency medicine on the fly. Kyle’s arm is healing fairly quickly on its own, but it had occurred to Savannah that that probably wouldn’t be the last—or worst—injury they’d see out in the field. Mostly, it’s just nice to have running water, a mattress, and people that aren’t John or Kyle around, even if being on base makes her a little restless and sad.

On the last day before they ship out again, she runs into Derek for the first time since he’d brought her back from Eagle Rock. He stares at the floor and thanks her for helping to shake Kyle out of his haze of grief, which is as good a confirmation as any that she’s doing something right in all of this.

Savannah nods in acknowledgement and turns to go, but he puts a hand on her shoulder and says, “The kid—John Connor—he’s treating you okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t he be? I mean, he’s seventeen, so there’s that, but he’s doing his best, I guess. We all are, though it helps to have a small team for what we’re doing. Why, did Kyle say something?”

“No, I just—well, I just wanted to make sure he’s taking care of you. You know. He’s…well, he’s younger than Kyle was when he and Sarah…” Derek trails off, and Savannah realizes what he’s actually asking.

“You think I’m _sleeping_ with John? Are you kidding?”

“You’re not?”

“No—oh my god! Absolutely not.”

He makes a face. “Tell me you’re not with Kyle.”

“ _What_?” Savannah’s jaw drops, and she can’t remember ever feeling so utterly and unnecessarily offended, let alone by Derek Reese. She briefly considers slugging him but instead demands, “Why do I have to be sleeping with _anybody_?”

Derek at least has the decency to look a little chagrined. “I guess you don’t…it’s just that everyone’s been trying to figure out why you went off with them.”

“And the best the gossip mill could do was that I’m fucking somebody?”

“Apparently. Look, don’t…”

“We’re following a lead—for fuck’s sake, you _asked_ me to get involved. And it was my damn idea to go! Sarah would be out there, too, if she were here, so if you think I’m out there for any other reason, you’re thinking of the wrong person. I thought you’d know me better than that.”

“I do. I do know you. And I know Kyle. It’s the kid I can’t figure out. No one can, although everyone’s got theories…”

“Well, that’s really not my problem.” She turns to leave again and doesn’t stop when he talks this time.

“Savannah—I just want to make sure you’re okay. And in good hands.”

“I’m fine. We’re fine. If you want to know anything else, just fucking ask and skip the dumbass assumptions. Excuse me while I go back to my busy life of not sleeping with people and trying to make a goddamn difference.”


	2. 2027

** 2027 **

Shortly after Savannah turns twenty-six—a fact she would have forgotten if Kyle hadn’t rounded up a celebratory Twinkie and John to sing “Happy Birthday” to her in a surprisingly good voice—they’re back on the road for a solid month.

It’s easy to lose track of time in the field, so when she wakes up one morning to see Kyle staring out at the rising sun, she doesn’t immediately understand why he didn’t wake her for the next watch.

“You okay? It should’ve been my turn, what, an hour or two ago?”

He shrugs. “It’s fine. I’ve just been thinking.”

“About…”

“Well, I just—it’s… it’s been a year. Today. Since she…” he trails off.

The realization makes Savannah’s vision swim for a moment. She shakes her head to clear it, then scoots over to sit next to Kyle. “Are you sure?”

“Mmhm. I’ve been keeping track. Didn’t want to say anything. But I needed a little time this morning. Just a chance to think, you know?”

“Of course, yeah,” Savannah nods. “It—it feels like forever ago. And like yesterday, at the same time.”

“Yeah,” John says behind them. She hadn’t heard him move. “I don’t think she’s really gone, though, most days. It’s like…she’s still part of this. Not that she’s _here_ , really, but I’ve got you guys, and we’re doing what she would’ve wanted—taking care of each other and the mission, right?”

Savannah and Kyle both nod. She looks back to the horizon; it’s a clear, bright morning, with no immediate danger ahead. “Beautiful sunrise, too.”

***

Marty catches her on one of their return trips. He usually meets with John, and they haven’t had much news to report since the Dodger Stadium cache anyway, so the fact that he seeks her out catches her off-guard.

“I wanted to warn you,” he explains. “You guys have been off doing your thing for almost a year now and, well…look, most of the brass doesn’t know what you or I do, but people are starting to mutter that we’re on the verge of losing three good soldiers to an unspecified wild goose chase. And we can’t waste resources—you know that.”

“Well, then, tell whichever people are muttering that we found them a fucking _stadium_ of untouched supplies and we’re not taking anything we wouldn’t be using up on base anyway. And John keeps coming back with those detector devices—we don’t have those parts here, and you know how nuts Engineering can get sometimes.”

“Look, I know. And I know why John Connor’s in the field, and I appreciate that you and Kyle Reese are with him…”

“You authorized it!”

“And I’m going to keep authorizing it as long as I can, Savannah, but this isn’t a dictatorship. I’m in command, but if the rest of the brass isn’t on board, I can’t keep supporting you guys. So show us some results—prove you’re doing something nobody else can, something that that needs doing—and do it soon, or you’re going to be back on Admin while Connor slowly drives himself nuts.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but he holds up a hand to stop her. “And no, I’m not explaining to people that he’s the savior of all humanity in another timeline. This is the one we’re living and fighting in, and we follow the people who have earned our trust through sheer competence. Nobody gets anything by virtue of who their parents were. Are. I saw him in action when I was sixteen; otherwise, I wouldn’t have agreed to even this much. He has to prove himself like anybody else—and you should know _that_ better than anyone. You practically demanded authority before you were done with puberty, and you earned it. No one handed you anything.”

He has a point. “Okay, I’ll see what we can do. Any ideas as to what it’ll take to impress the others?”

***

Two weeks later, she’s crouched just inside an open window on the second floor of a decrepit office building, taser in hand, watching Kyle ready a tripwire on the ground beneath them.

“You sure this is going to work?”

In the same awkward position next to her, John half-shrugs. “I think so. It’s basic physics—we just have to get on them fast enough.”

“I’m not worried about trapping metal, I’m worried about the part of your plan where we walk one back to base and try to convince everyone—anyone—that it’s not going to kill us all on sight.”

“It’s a risk,” John admits, peering down at the street below.

“Oh, good.”

“But, I mean—look, I know how to do this. And you said Bedell wanted results, so…this is what I know I can do. And if— _when_ it works, it’s going to make a difference. It has to.”

Kyle signals that the tripwire is set and ducks into the equally wrecked building next door to wait.

“And why did we pick here?”

“Intel said we’re close enough to one of their factories that there should be some foot traffic…but I think we should be far enough out that we can grab one of their soldiers and run without any immediate backlash.”

“You _think_?”

“Best guess,” he shrugs. “We’re not here to be safe.”

She scowls at the implication that she’s not prepared to deal with Skynet’s hypothetical retaliation, but, before she can respond, there’s a light, lilting bird call—Kyle’s signal that it’s time to put John’s plan into action. They both look carefully around the jagged glass lining the window.

“Two of them?” Savannah whispers. Backlash is one thing; subduing two Terminator scouts out in the open, even with three people, is another. Infiltrator models usually travel alone—the running theory is that Skynet thinks they’ll be less detectable that way—so the matched pair makes her suspicious. She squints to get a better view and is surprised to see they’re identical: over six feet tall, with short hair and square features, and so broad, muscular, and overtly masculine that it’s like looking at anthropomorphized hunter-killer tanks.

Actually, that’s exactly what she’s looking at.

Savannah glances back at John, who’s grinning and gives her the nod to go. She barely has time to mouth, “Are you crazy?” before he jumps out the window, forcing her to jump right after him.

There’s a split second in midair, before she fires her taser at and knocks over the farther-away Terminator, where Savannah is certain that this is how she’s going to die—following John Connor into the void. Fortunately, her taser hits the metal’s cheek before it can react to John’s parallel attack on its companion. Both go down with heavy thumps, and John and Savannah land with practiced ease.

“And…go!” Kyle says, putting his now-ticking egg timer aside to restrain both machines while John and Savannah remove their respective chips. She’s finished in just over forty seconds; John’s done moments later, and they spend the rest of their grace period tying the things’ wrists and ankles together with increasingly elaborate knots. As soon as the egg timer pings, their guns are up, but a quick sweep of the area shows no indication that they’ve been spotted.

“I can’t believe that actually worked,” Kyle comments as they regroup.

“Me neither,” Savannah admits. “And with two of them?”

John has a faint but triumphant smile on his face. “I told you it could work.”

“There were two of them!”

“And we took them down, and now they’re going to work for us. And one of them is going back to the ‘90s at some point to help take out Cyberdyne. And break Mom out of the loony bin—it’s the same model.” He deftly ignores Savannah and Kyle’s looks of shock—they’ve both heard the story but hadn’t realized today’s exact machine was involved—and settles down with his battered laptop and the two chips.

“So…we should believe you when you say you can reprogram them?” Kyle says hesitantly.

He nods. “This guy taught me the basics when I was younger, and Cameron showed me the rest. And I’m pretty good with computers to begin with—it’s actually not as hard as you’d think.” Savannah rolls her eyes and starts digging through the lifeless machines’ clothing for weapons.

Kyle asks, “Who’s Cameron?”

There’s a very pregnant pause before John replies, “Just…another one of the reprogrammed Terminators I’m supposed to send back.” Savannah doesn’t say anything to contradict him.

***

It’s not clear if John sleeps for any of the next two days. He hardly speaks, and Kyle only gets him to eat a couple of times, but when he finally detaches himself from his laptop, it’s with a cautious smile. He reinstalls the reprogrammed chips into their captive machines and waits, unarmed but flanked by Savannah and Kyle, who are both prepared to fight and beginning to question John’s sanity.

Savannah is, anyway; she knows from firsthand experience that it’s possible to reprogram the machines, but it’s still hard to believe John could accomplish what he thinks he has in so little time. And what if Cameron misled him? They still didn’t know her endgame —why she and the shapeshifter and John Henry had led John into the future in the first place.

But the two machines, which John designates Bob and Bill, blink into consciousness and wait, docile as sheep, as John unties them. Neither so much as blinks until John orders them to stand. Over the course of the journey back to Serrano Point, Savannah feels her muscles unclench bit by bit with each hour that goes by. Bob and Bill are completely obedient to John, with no apparent thoughts or intentions of their own. They set up camp, stand guard, hunt for anything edible, and, improbably, dress a laser burn John ends up with after a brief firefight with perfect precision. They also ensure that that firefight ends so quickly that the drones in question are in pieces on the ground before any of their human chaperones can so much as process that he’s injured.

It’s unnerving. Savannah doesn’t mention it to either of them, but she keeps hearing Sarah’s voice in her head: “Sometimes they go bad, and no one knows why.”

Kyle feels it, too, she knows—the sense that, even though everything seems to be working, these machines are just _wrong_. There’s no question that having them could be an advantage against Skynet, but they’ve both seen enough failed attempts at gaining an edge that they’re skeptical—especially when this one is being presented by a not-quite-eighteen-year-old who’s been in this timeline barely a year. They don’t discuss the issue in so many words—Kyle wants to spare John’s feelings and show that he trusts his son the way Sarah did—but they quietly agree to keep an eye on the metal at all times, regardless of sleep and guard shifts.

Still, by the time they get back to Serrano Point, Bob and Bill have continued to be models of obedience. John radios ahead to avoid any sentries’ shooting at the first sign of metal, but it’s clear nothing could have prepared Marty, the brass, or anyone else for the sight of tame Terminators. John switches from his quietly giddy, teenage self to a serious and confident military strategist as soon as they arrive, and he explains in painstaking detail over and over again why the machines are now trustworthy. Savannah and Kyle back him up as best they can, even though the technical jargon means nothing to them—Kyle at this point seems convinced, and Savannah has no reason to dissent except the knowledge that another supposedly tame machine had nearly broken her wrist twenty years earlier.

They camp out just outside the tunnel system’s outer reaches with the metal for nearly a week. When the Skynet intel provided by Bob and Bill checks out, Marty finally admits them into Serrano Point, albeit under continued scrutiny and a heavy guard. John spends the next month on base, teaching every engineer and tech from the brass down to the pre-pubescent trainees in the tunnels and bunkers how to do what he can do—both for the T-800 models like Bob and Bill and for the more advanced ones that have yet to be built. Other units bring back additional chassis and chips for apparently successful reprogramming, and there’s not a single incident of a machine gone “bad” to report—yet.

Savannah wonders if the machines’ “going bad” will be due to bad programming, or the things’ gaining too much self-awareness and autonomy, or simply future models that will be harder to tame, but she can’t reasonably protest anything that’s happening. She also knows enough about Serrano Point’s internal politics to know that she needs to stay in John’s camp, at least publicly. So she keeps her mouth shut and keeps shadowing Lauren in the med ward—and, if Lauren shares Savannah’s concerns, she doesn’t mention them, either.

When they finally go back in the field, Serrano Point has half a dozen reprogrammed Terminators working in various sections. John leaves Bob and Bill behind, and eventually Savannah starts sleeping soundly again—at least until they pick up John’s next pet.

***

In the middle of spring, around dawn, Savannah is keeping watch while the boys sleep. Their camp is out in the open—a risk, to be sure, but they’re far from known Skynet hubs, and anything taller than a couple of feet would have an awfully hard time sneaking up on them. So, when she spots a humanoid figure limping in the distance, she doesn’t react immediately. The metal detector in her lap doesn’t register anything, even when the stranger—a middle-aged man with ghostly pale skin and still-puffy laser burn scars on his face—is well within range.

When he gets closer she notices his limp is inconsistent. He looks better-fed than someone wandering around this wasteland in tattered fatigues should, and he’s not at all sunburned, despite the lack of cover. There’s no reason to think he isn’t human, but there’s also no reason to think he isn’t a threat.

Savannah jumps to her feet once he’s within firing range, rifle cocked and trained on him. John and Kyle aren’t far, but the pile of rubble she’s been sitting on hides them from his view, so she’s caught between making a noisy display to wake them and hoping they mobilize quickly enough for a show of force or just letting them stay hidden and leaving at least some element of surprise intact, assuming they do get woken up by whatever happens next.

She opts for the latter and lets her arms tremble in a show of nerves—even as an adult, she’s skinny and unthreatening-looking, so it’s useful to encourage strangers to underestimate her competency—and waits for the man to stop walking once he spots her gun. A few yards away from her, he does.

“Morning, miss,” he says, hands in the air.

“H—hi,” Savannah says, hoping her faked stutter is more convincing than his limp. “Can I help you?”

“Why don’t you lower that rifle so we can talk?”

She’s not about to do that, so she sets her jaw, continues her show of nerves, and waits for him to talk.

“Right. Well. I’m trying to get back to Serrano Point—got separated from my unit a couple weeks back. Sure you know how that goes, out here.”

“Uh huh,” Savannah says. “What’s your name?”

He takes a step toward her, his smile more condescending than comforting. “Simon Saxon. Tracker for the 74th—probably been reported dead by now, if you’ve been at base, but…”

Savannah shoots him in the right thigh and feels a warm surge of satisfaction at the spurt of blood that means she’s hit an artery.

“You bitch—what the fuck—” And then he charges at her, adrenaline apparently overcoming what should be blinding pain in his leg.

The speed of his reaction surprises Savannah, enough that she loses her brief advantage, and he knocks her to the ground, straddling her and landing a solid punch on her temple. She focuses on casting her gun out of his reach—there’s no way she can shoot him point-blank without basically handing him the weapon. He aims for her other temple, but she knees him in groin at an angle that hits his bullet wound in the same stroke. The man yowls in pain, and the hand he’d meant to hit her with flies toward his crotch on reflex. Savannah catches his arm and yanks him to the left, sweeping her legs out from under him and logrolling away from him and toward her rifle. She whirls onto her feet and is reaching for the gun when a shot rings out.

Savannah freezes, but nothing hits her. She turns around slowly to see John, standing above the attacker and looking as if he’s been awake for hours. His rifle is pointed at the older man, who’s now bleeding steadily from the gut as well as his thigh.

“Who the fuck are _you_?” the man rasps.

“The one asking the questions,” John says in that voice that makes people forget how old he is. “Don’t move, not a muscle, unless you want to test how good my aim is with this thing. And, trust me, I’ve been handling bigger pieces than this since I could crawl.” He half-turns his head toward Savannah. “You okay?”

Before she can reply, the man starts moving his hand toward the waistband of his fatigues. John shoots, hitting the dirt barely five inches away from his elbow.

“I said, don’t move. That’s your warning. My mother raised me not to waste bullets.” The man gulps visibly and stills. “Now,” John turns back to Savannah. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine. Just knocked around.” She picks up her gun and trains it on the attacker.

“Good,” he says, returning focus to the bleeding man, who’s starting to look like he may pass out—or at least like he wants to. “So, who are you?”

“I told her. Simon Saxon. 74th. Just trying to get back to base. Fucking ginger cunt shot me for saying that.”

Savannah snorts. “Bullshit. I know Simon. I worked with him for years in Admin; he’s a skinny twenty-three-year-old with glasses and biracial parents. He’s been missing since before our last stop at base, yeah, but this isn’t him. So, who are you, really?”

The man winces but doesn’t respond. John takes a step toward him. “You’re going to bleed out in a few minutes, you know. If you’re working for the machines, they won’t bother trying to save you. You’re human, so you’re expendable—to them. Give me an answer I like, and maybe I’ll have my medic patch you up. Worth the risk, I think.” Savannah is the closest thing they have to a medic, though, and there’s not much she could do for this man, even if he hadn’t attacked her. And it’s clear to her that John knows it, but it convinces their stranger nonetheless.

“Mike Bolling,” the man hisses between clenched teeth. “Was with the 89th up ‘til I got separated. Year or two ago. Nobody came for me. You guessed right—Skynet’s had me since.”

“And they just let you walk?”

“Scanners spotted humans out here yesterday. Showed me the picture. I said nabbing Sarah Connor’s daughter’d be a coup for ‘em. So they sent me here.”

A chill crawls up Savannah’s spine. “Unarmed? What the hell were you trying to do?”

“Gotta pistol, y’know,” he slurs. Without medical attention, he’s minutes away from bleeding out, at best. “Was gonna play nice. Then they track me, spring their trap—‘s worked before, like on the 74th, with Saxon. Plenty of times. ‘Cept then you shot me. Bitch.” He spits at her, or tries to—saliva ends up dribbling down his chin.

“Creative. I’ve never been called that before, thanks.”

John rolls his eyes. “Anything else you’d like to share? Or are you going to just keep insulting my sister here? I’ve got an itchy trigger finger, and I already told you my rule about wasting bullets.”

“Fuck you, kid, I’m a dead man either way. You know what, fuck both of you. They’re gonna win, you know—fucking human beings can’t go five minutes without turning on each other.”

“That’s a shame,” John says, adjusting his aim as Bolling writhes.

“Who the hell _are_ you, anyway? Why the—”

“You said you came looking for Sarah Connor’s daughter, huh? Didn’t anybody tell you she had a son?”

Realization is just beginning to dawn on Bolling’s face when John shoots him in the throat. He sputters and falls forward in a short spray of blood that hits the toes of John’s boots. After a couple of seconds, John nudges an unmoving Bolling with his foot and then stoops down to check his pulse.

The only thing Savannah can think to say is, “Thanks.”

John nods. “I didn’t realize people had started going gray in this timeline already.”

“I didn’t, either. Time to report back, I guess. That explains about the 74th, too.”

“Yeah. You sure you’re okay?”

“He only got in the one punch. I’m fine.”

“I meant—well.”

“Because he’s dead? I mean, it’s not like there was much else we could’ve done with him—didn’t seem like he had much more to say, and he was gonna bleed out anyway. And it’s not like we were going to truck him back to Serrano. There’s no jail or anything like that there anyway.”

“Really?”

“Usually, we just send people topside unarmed and they tend to play nice if they make it back alive. Plus, he’s not the first asshole I helped kill, so...I’ll be fine. At least it was less messy this time.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen. It was a few months before Judgment Day—home invasion while Sarah was at the supermarket. I mean, my dog did most of the work, and I…I don’t know, I threw up after. And then dealt with it. That’s what we do, right?”

“I was sixteen,” he offers. “I mean, it was right on my birthday. Literally. I’d seen people die before, but…I hadn’t actually done it. I didn’t throw up, but…yeah.” He lets out a short bark of a laugh. “I cut a bunch of my hair off, like that was going to make any kind of difference—though it almost felt like it did at the time.”

“And now?”

He shrugs and looks at his feet. “Like you said, what else could we have done with him? We should get moving though, especially if they really are tracking us—and we should probably bury him.”

Savannah nods. “Right, yeah. That’s what people do. Even for piece-of-shit grays.”

“I can’t believe Kyle slept through this.”

“A lot of the tunnel rats would’ve—they learned pretty quick to sleep hard, wherever.”

“Not you?”

It’s Savannah’s turn to shrug. “Sometimes Sarah would attack me in the middle of the night, just to make sure I could fend her off. And we moved around at the drop of a hat in the first year or two right after J-Day—so, yeah, I’ll wake up at anything.”

“Me too. I heard talking, and then with the gunshot—I was up.”

“You took your time! That bastard punched me in the _head_ ,” she points out, only half-kidding.

“I wanted a clear shot—besides, it seemed like you had the situation under control. Relatively speaking.”

Savannah’s rarely underestimated by people who know her—whether on her own merits or because of her longtime proximity to Sarah—but something about John’s treating her like an equal is oddly rewarding. Then she remembers he called her his sister, and she thinks it’s probably appropriate that Sarah Connor’s children are bonding over a still-warm corpse.

“Hey, Savannah?” John interrupts her thoughts. “Maybe we should tell Kyle he shot first.”

“Uh, okay, sure. Whatever.” Savannah can’t decide if he’s still trying to impress his father or if this is a different agenda. “I’ll wake him if you want to start digging.”

John sighs and kneels next to the body, checking Bolling’s pockets for anything useful. “Anyway, killing’s the easy part, right? The hard part’s what comes after.”

She can’t tell if he means the broader war they’re fighting or simply the rest of the day, but she lets John tell Kyle it was self-defense.

***

The ensuing months bring more metal—more captures and reprogramming—and it starts to become clear how John could be a messianic figure in another timeline: he’s certainly well on his way in this one.

Everyone, from the youngest tunnel rats all the way up to the brass, seems to trust the metal he fixes more than anyone else’s handiwork, and Savannah finds herself again an object of fascination by association. She’d borne the unwanted attention alongside Sarah without comment because she’d known Sarah better than anyone and because Sarah’s own disdain for the admiration had always been clear.

It’s harder to tell with John, for whom the wide-eyed admiration of soldiers twice his age seems to come as a long-awaited relief rather than an annoyance. She’d known his relationship to his supposedly unavoidable destiny was a complicated one, but there’s a difference between her theoretical knowledge from Sarah’s stories and bearing firsthand witness to the rise of her enigmatic foster brother. She’s still struggling to understand him, and the attention he gets at Serrano doesn’t help.

He’s easier to connect with when they’re out in the wastelands of Los Angeles County, though she accepts that moments of sibling bonding, if they exist at all, will be rare. He’s focused on the mission first, and then on getting to know Kyle while he can. Savannah reminds herself that she’s there because Sarah can’t be; he accepts her out of respect for Sarah and because she’s damn useful on a day-to-day basis. It’s easy enough, and, really, she prefers keeping the attention on the mission, too.

In the late spring, Marty admits that their arrangement may have an expiration date anyway: there are techs and foot soldiers alike clamoring to work with the one and only _Johnconnor_ (that’s how they all say his name—all at once, like it’s a title), and John’s successes are fast becoming so valuable that putting him in the field with just two guards, however capable, seems unnecessarily risky. Marty says he’ll try to hold the fan club off a bit longer, but he can’t make any promises.

Savannah takes out her feelings on the matter on a makeshift punching bag—the biggest sack of bandages she can find in the med ward—and on a particularly large coyote that she guns down for dinner a week later in the field. Neither spate of contained violence helps much, though, and she’s left wondering how John would react to a left hook aimed at his carefully maintained stubble. Still, she restrains herself—and tries to believe it’s for Kyle’s sake.

***

Autumn rolls around, and their trio’s time is finally up. Marty sends them out with over a dozen soldiers, handpicked by him, John, and Justin Perry, who’s been Marty’s second-in-command since Ray Rodriguez died. The tipping point, it turns out, was a young tech named Sebastian Ybarra, who pointed out to John that the Resistance needed more people like him—and the best way to shape them would be training under the person they meant to emulate. Even Savannah couldn’t deny the wisdom in that.

They take on more typical—if no less dangerous—field missions, and no one gets told about John Henry or the other machine. It’s not so bad, having other people around—though John seems more guarded than ever, especially when it comes to Kyle, Savannah appreciates the small conveniences of not being the only woman and occasional third wheel in their party. They’re not as agile as a smaller group would be, but they get longer sleep shifts and an actual, trained medic to boot.

Their expanded unit is ultimately less an appeal to John’s ego—he still seems surprised that so many people hang onto his words the way they do, even if part of him had sort of expected that they would eventually—and more a concession to what Savannah always hoped would be true: that John, by right of birth or upbringing or something else entirely, knows something the rest of them don’t.

Beyond his programming skills, it’s not always clear what that something is. But every time she watches him teach someone how to aim a sniper rifle or tweak a line of computer code, she thinks she’s starting to understand why, in every timeline that there’s a Skynet and a Judgment Day, there’s also some version of John Connor at the vanguard of humanity.

She just wishes she understood why he’d tried to abdicate that post all those years ago.

***

They make it back to Serrano Point in time for Christmas. Savannah hasn’t celebrated the holiday since living at the lighthouse, but others do. So much of their new team is too young to remember life before Judgment Day, and they often cling to simple mainstays that connect them to that past. Savannah trucks out to Eagle Rock with Lauren to see Sydney for the day; none of them do gifts, but Lauren brings trinkets for Sydney’s charges that her patients have made while recovering, and it’s moderately fun and peaceful, even if Savannah gets roped into diaper duty a few times.

They catch a transport back in the early evening and play catch-up—Savannah realizes it’s been months since she talked to Lauren about anything beyond triage and Sydney’s wellbeing. Neither of them has much to report beyond their usual operations, but it’s relaxing to talk to one of the few people who knows her as something more than Sarah’s daughter, John’s lieutenant, or that prickly redhead who used to run Admin.

“You should come with us next time,” Savannah blurts out about three-quarters of the way through the ride. It’s a selfish impulse—she knows Lauren isn’t big on fieldwork, and she’s a linchpin in the base’s medical team at this point—but she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her friend.

Lauren half-smiles, not taking her seriously. “Or you could stay put. Periello’s doing fine with Admin, but it’s not like you’d be stuck being bored down in the infantry here. Especially not with what I’m sure would be a _glowing_ recommendation from the great John Connor himself. Or his other trusty sidekick, Kyle Reese.”

Savannah snorts. “I’m serious, though—it’d be nice to have you along.”

“Don’t you have a medic already?”

“Only because we have enough people to merit one. I don’t think Abarca would mind staying back if you wanted to come.”

“Sav…”

“We come back pretty frequently, you know. It’s not like you wouldn’t see Sydney.”

“Oh, it’s not her. Or, I mean—it’s not just her.”

“Hey, if someone else can run Admin, someone else can take over for you, too.”

“I met somebody,” Lauren says abruptly. “It’s—it’s still new, kind of, but I want to…see. It seems like a thing that could last.” After a beat, she adds, “Anyway, you know I love you, but I hate being in the field anyway. I prefer the controlled environment. Fewer guns.”

Savannah blinks. She’d known Lauren has had dalliances here and there, but a more serious relationship is news. “Really? What’s her name?”

“You know Kate Brewster?”

“With the dogs—the vet?”

“Yeah. Her. We ended up working together on a few things—her team needed people who could suture and deliver babies, we needed extra hands ‘cause people seem to get injured _way_ more than the dogs do—and, you know, we got to talking, one thing led to another…and you have a very odd look on your face.”

“Sorry, I just—no, I’m happy for you. I like her, though—I mean, I don’t know her well, but she’s good at what she does, and, hey, fellow redhead. And she’s around your age, right? So—”

“Now you’re babbling. Weird look on you.”

Savannah reddens and ducks her head. “Sorry. Just surprised is all. Uh, but yeah—good reason to stay put I guess.”

“I think so. She’s—I don’t know anyone like her. And I feel like I’ve known some pretty unique individuals.”

“Well, that’s good then.” They ride for a minute or so in companionable silence until something else occurs to Savannah. “Does this mean you’re gonna double-date with John and Allison Young?”

Lauren mimes pushing her off the moving cart, and, everything else aside, it feels good to laugh.


	3. 2028

** 2028 **

Savannah is pouring over intel maps with John before their next departure when, out of the blue, he hands her a cup of coffee and asks, “Why Weaver?”

“What?”

“You go by Weaver.”

“It’s my name.”

“But you always talk about Mom like she was your mom, too. And you were little when you went to live with her, right? So.”

“She _was_ my mom, but…I don’t know. Connor isn’t my last name. I was old enough to have established that, I guess.”

“Is that why you always called her Sarah? And not Mom?”

Savannah does not feel prepared for this particular line of interrogation, but John’s voice is doing one of its strange John Connor things where he sounds genuinely interested without leaving room for argument or a subject change. She sinks into a chair and takes a sip from her mug. The coffee is watery, but at least it’s still hot.

“It wasn’t...it was never something we, like, discussed. I started out calling her Sarah because when the nice lady saved my life she told me that was her name. Later on—I mean, it wasn’t that long, I guess, but it was long enough to—I don’t know, I just always called her Sarah.”

“Oh.” John seems unsatisfied by her answer, and squints back at the map.

“For what it’s worth,” she adds, speaking without thinking much further, “the—the thing that was taking care of me before her? I called that Mom. Mommy. Whatever. And then it turned out to be a homicidal monster, so I didn’t really ever want to think of Sarah like that. And I always kind of thought…I just assumed that Mom was what you called her. And, well, especially early on, she didn’t really talk about you. So I didn’t think it’d be my place to do that anyway. Even once the, uh, relationship was there.”

“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. Did she ever let you pick fake names for you guys, too?”

Savannah nods. “Yeah, I was Sophie for a while when I was little. Before J-Day, when we were on the run, we all took turns, and I always did characters from the action movies we’d watch, as long as they weren’t too weird. Sarah always did either Wizard of Oz actors or Biblical names. Lauren just picked the most boring ones she could think of…actually, I think she was Kate a few times. That’s kinda funny.”

“Why?”

“Her girlfriend? I think they’re telling people now. Do you know Kate Brewster—the vet?”

John gets a weird look on his face. “She’s gay?”

“Lauren?”

“Kate Brewster.”

“Or bi; I didn’t ask. Does it matter?”

“I guess not. That’s gotta be a common name, right? Maybe I’m thinking of someone else.”

***

Marty Bedell dies on a cold, wet March afternoon while on a routine inspection of the filtration system. No one has time to mourn—the drone strike that kills their longtime leader and several others (both brass and infantry) also obliterates almost every method Serrano Point’s residents have of cleaning their water supply—and protecting it from Skynet interference.

Repairs take longer than expected—many of the original engineers behind the systems are long gone. Rose Reynolds is still in charge, thankfully, but her expertise is more structural than chemical or mechanical, and most of her team lacks the formal, pre-Skynet training their predecessors had had.

Justin Perry takes charge in the state of emergency that follows, pulling every available body into fixing the filters and ensuring that nothing contaminated gets into Serrano Point or the tunnel complex. The latter is easier said than done, given that water rations aren’t something anyone has had to adjust to before, and too many people are willing to risk drinking directly from outside sources.

Things get tense, and Perry comes just short of ordering guards to start protecting people from themselves—until John steps in. He doesn’t say anything substantially different from what Perry and the rest of the brass have been parroting for two weeks, yet everyone—from the veteran soldiers to the desperate prepubescent tunnel rats—just listens to him. Savannah can’t figure out if it’s his tone, his established reputation, or simply that he’s willing to explain things over and over in the same calm voice without brandishing a weapon, but it works.

By the time the dust settles and things go back to normal, everyone is calling John Connor “General,” Justin Perry included.

***

“So, Perry’s going to run everything at Serrano Point, and I’ll go back out to the field and I guess give orders based on what we find,” John explains over a new set of maps in the early spring. “‘We’ is now going to be, like, thirty people, though. Apparently, that’s the standard unit size, and if I’m supposed to be…whatever I’m supposed to be now, I can’t really do the special ops anymore. On the upside, I get my pick of people. And some of the existing brass had good suggestions about who…anyway, it’s all still pretty weird to think about, but at least we made it out the other end of the mess with the water thing.”

“All except Marty and the others.”

“Yeah…but hopefully it’s gonna be okay. Alyssa Bedell gave me her blessing to take over for him, you know—I ran into her at Marty’s spot in the mausoleum tunnel thing a couple of days ago.”

“You went down there?”

“I—yeah, it was the first time I could get away on my own. Well, with Allison. But I wanted to pay my respects. I mean, I met him when he was, like, sixteen, back before. Anyway, no one else was there besides Alyssa. We just talked for a bit. I’d never really met her before; she’s nice.”

Savannah forgets sometimes how John’s people skills really shine in the little moments, like comforting a widow he barely knows or teaching a bedwetting seven-year-old how to tie her shoes.

“So, when are you leaving?”

“Couple of days—just need to get things a little more settled with Perry. Wait—‘you’? Are you not coming?”

“Uh…I just figured—you have that whole team now, and you said the brass was moving people around...”

John looks positively floored, which is a look she hasn’t seen on him since he arrived in this future. “No. No, no, no—you have to come. I need you out there.”

“Oh, okay, that’s—”

“I mean, you’re one of the best soldiers here. Even if you weren’t doing field before—“

“It’s fine. I’ll come. I just thought, you know, since you have Kyle and all the others now—“

“You’re basically my sister, and you’re all I have left of Mom, and I just—“

Savannah stops him mid-sentence when her pulse starts to pound in her ears. “Wait, what did you just call me?”

“It’s just, it’s better with you along,” John finishes, a little lamely.

“You just said I was your sister. To my face.”

“Well…yeah. You are. Right? Isn’t that what you usually call people you share parents with? Is that okay?”

Kyle isn’t her father figure by any stretch of the imagination, so it’s really “parent,” singular, but that’s not the point. “Yeah, no, I mean…that’s fine. We’ve just never really, uh, talked about it before. That.”

“Oh. Well, um, if you’re still up for roaming around with me. And twenty-seven of your other best friends.”

“I still want to find John Henry. And—“

“Definitely. That’s still the mission. Or part of it, anyway. Not that anyone else knows, obviously, but…”

“Good. And, uh…thanks, I guess?”

“You’re welcome, I guess?” And then he smiles. It’s not a big, silly grin, just a simple upturn in the corners of his mouth, but she thinks this might be the first moment she’s actually liked John Connor for himself.

***

The second anniversary of Sarah’s death comes and goes. Now that she and John have started to warm to each other, Savannah feels the loss less keenly—there’s still a hole in her life where her mother is supposed to be, but it helps to have someone around that she can talk to about Sarah who’s also game for bilingual discussions of sniper training methodology.

She comes to realize that Kyle’s in a different place with his grief. Despite the age gap, Sarah hadn’t been any kind of parent to him, and the difference between his experience and John and Savannah’s shows. He had lost someone he had wanted—and had, all too briefly—as a life partner, and the knowledge that he will eventually see her again seems to hinder rather than help his adjustment to being without her.

Kyle handles the whole thing better than Savannah thinks she would in his place, especially given how borderline nonfunctional she’d been when he and Sarah were at Century and she was attempting to deal with knowing Derek’s fate alone. But the more John grows into his various roles—including as family to Savannah—the more Kyle seems to withdraw from everyone.

It’s a sad thing to watch, but she has no idea how to help him, especially now that they have no privacy for small moments anymore. If John notices, he doesn’t talk about it, though both men share a ghost of a smile when Ybarra offhandedly refers to John’s “stepdad.”

They level a few Skynet factories, bring back a dozen more reprogrammed Terminators, and manage not to lose any soldiers until the third expedition under General Connor’s leadership, but, after nearly two years of roaming the wasteland together, there’s still no sign of the machines that led them here.

***

At the height of summer, they return to home with a caravan of scrap metal and two battered but functional tanks to find the complex on high alert; they try three different entrances to the tunnel system before a keyhole so much as opens, and even then it’s only John’s face and a lack of dog barks that get them inside. John dispatches two drivers to take their spoils to a bigger entryway and two runners in the tunnels to make sure they’re admitted, and the rest of the group starts the mile-long trek back to base. Perry meets them at the basement entrance to Serrano Point.

“I hope you’re about to explain what the hell is going on,” John snaps.

Perry is easily twenty years’ John’s senior, but he doesn’t take issue with John’s tone. “Tunnel collapse to the northwest this morning, sir. Too sudden not to be deliberate, and before any of Reynolds’s team could assess the situation, H-Ks took out everything within twenty feet of the surface on the other side. We’ve been evacuating the tunnel rats and running defensive maneuvers all day.”

John sighs with the weight of his next question. “How many dead?”

“Thirty-two confirmed, plus three dogs. Maybe a few more people, but—”

“I’d like to see a list, if someone’s got it.”

“Allison Young was one of them. Sir.”

John stops mid-step, so suddenly that Savannah nearly runs into him. He motions the rest of their unit to carry on, shakes his head as if to clear it, and turns back to Perry. “You have that list?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want everyone with sentry rotations to memorize it. We need to be on the lookout for duplicates—Skynet will try to use familiar faces to get in here, sooner or later.”

“When did the T-800s get that advanced?”

“They’re triple-eights now. T-888s. Spread the word.” Savannah shudders. It’s a lie, she knows, but it won’t be for long, and people are used to John’s having knowledge no one else does without explanation by now. Perry nods sharply and sprints away, leaving John, Savannah, and Kyle in the tunnel. Kyle touches his son’s shoulder in a gesture of wordless sympathy, but John just stands there, silent and unmoving and unreadable, for over a minute.

Finally, he gulps and tells Kyle, “Go see Derek. We’ll regroup tomorrow. I’ll be fine.” Whatever else is at play, it’s clear how far John is from _that_ , but, at almost nineteen, comfort doesn’t seem to be what he wants just now.

“Come find me, if you need me,” Kyle says. “Seriously. It’s—you’ve got me, okay? If you need me.” John bobs his head weakly and watches Kyle walk away.

Savannah waits until it’s just the two of them in earshot before she says, “When the duplicates start showing up—people will understand, you know. You don’t have to reprogram her. It.”

When John turns to look at her, his face is harder, determined, and he speaks in a sharp hiss. “Yes, I do—and you of all people should know that.”

“Me?”

“Remember how Mom said Kyle was essential for…all of this? For how things turned out? It’s the same with Cameron. She saves my life—our lives—too many times to count, and she’s gonna save _you_ from the same metal that killed—will kill—Derek. We need her. _I_ need her. So, when she shows up, yeah, I’m gonna reprogram her. Because I have to. Same reason I get to send my own father to his death sooner or later.”

Savannah swallows whatever it was she had planned to say next. “It’s…it’s hard being John Connor sometimes, isn’t it? Harder than it looks?”

He tilts his head to stare at the reinforced dirt ceiling above them; she’s willing to bet it’s a deliberate move to avoid tearing up. “Yeah. Most days.”

“I—I’m sorry. I don’t think I ever really realized.”

“It’s okay. I mean, most people…I don’t think Mom even really got it, not all the time. But it was nice to get away from that, even just for a little bit there. I…”

She hugs him. It’s awkward and bony and not really comforting, but hopefully it’s the thought that counts, Savannah decides. Just when she’s about to let go, John hugs her back, tightly. He’s only a couple of inches taller than she is, and he buries his face in her shoulder, letting out a lone, desperate sob.

“Do me a favor?” he asks quietly, muffled by her braid, which is slung over her shoulder and against his face. “Please don’t tell Kyle. About Cameron, I mean. It’s just…easier. Please?”

“Yeah, of—of course.”

No wonder the John that Kyle will—did—describe to Sarah in 1984 was so brave and infallible, she thinks but doesn’t say.

***

The T-888 version of Allison Young shows up within weeks, claiming to have escaped from a labor camp. She—it—almost fools the dogs, but the sentries follow John’s orders and subdue her straightaway. John reprograms the duplicate himself and makes it clear he’s keeping the newly minted Cameron as his personal aide. Even knowing his reasoning, Savannah can’t repress shudders the first several times she “meets” his new pet, and she’s hardly the only one—he can do no wrong in the eyes of most soldiers, but that doesn’t keep them from thinking John’s particular memorial to his dead lover is a little creepy.

Kyle accepts his son’s twisted choices without question; when pressed, he insists everyone mourns differently. The idea that he sees Cameron’s existence as parallel to his getting to see Sarah again in the past makes Savannah want to vomit, but she keeps quiet. What would telling him the full story change?

Savannah worries that Cameron will come along on their next mission, but John assigns her to liaise on his behalf with Perry and the rest of the brass on base instead. It’s unclear if this is better or worse for everyone involved, frankly, but at least she won’t have to be around Cameron for much longer. Savannah has every intention of keeping her promises to Sarah, but the way John looks at Cameron—not as a replacement for a dead girl, but as his own personal savior—unnerves her more than almost anything else life has thrown her way so far.

But if Sarah hadn’t been able to change John’s mind in the past, Savannah can’t imagine what difference she’ll be able to make now, so she doesn’t bother.

***

The day before they’re due to depart, she’s using a rare few minutes with John and without Cameron to talk supplies when Kate Brewster, of all people, bursts into the closet and swiftly punches John in the face, audibly breaking his nose. He stumbles backward, throwing his fists up on reflex and ignoring the burst of blood on the lower half of his face.

But Kate doesn’t hit him again. She just stares at him, and though she’s hard to read and Savannah doesn’t know her well, it looks almost like she’s angry with him for not simply hitting back. After a moment, John drops his hands, meets her eyes for a breath, and then slowly leans his head back and pinches his nose to stop the bleeding.

Savannah thinks she’s just witnessed something strange and possibly private, but she can’t think of a single reason John would have interacted with Lauren’s girlfriend before. He barely even knows Lauren except through Savannah. “What the hell, Kate?”

Kate ignores her and says to John, “You twisted little fuck.”

John tilts his head forward just enough to look at her. “Look, Dr. Brewster, I’m not sure what you—“

“Don’t you _dare_. I know who you are—“

“What? Everyone knows who I am.”

“Mrs. Barton’s fifth grade class? I’m not an idiot, Connor. You look the same, or close enough.”

Something clicks in Savannah’s mind, but she pushes it aside and digs for a duty roster to figure out where the hell Lauren is and how long it would take to get her here.

“Okay, fine, we’ve…met before,” John concedes. “Do you have something else you wanted to say? Or can I go get something cold for this?”

“I didn’t say a word. A goddamn word,” Kate rages, stepping closer to John. Savannah inches toward the door. “Because you made her _happy_ , and I thought, well, at least if she’s with him, she can’t get much safer. _John Connor_ must be looking out for the people closest to him. And then that tunnel collapsed, and I thought, no, he couldn’t have known. That’s just shit luck, and we’re fighting a war. I never got to bury my dad after J-Day; I can survive not getting to lay to rest the body of this girl I’d raised since she was _seven_. But then, you—you bring this monster to our base—”

“Do you think I don’t know what people are saying?” John sounds sad more than angry. “You think I don’t care that they killed her, Kate? That I wouldn’t have—if I—“

“And you give it a name, and you let it walk around with _her_ face and _her_ voice and _her_ place in your life? That’s sick, Connor. That’s just—what the hell gives you the right to parade my dead girl around like some kind of spoil of war?”

Savannah hovers in the doorway with the schedule, unable to look away. John lowers his face back to normal and shakes off his hand, flicking blood onto the floor. He surges forward, until he’s standing face-to-face with Kate. She’s more than twice his age and a few inches taller, but John seems to grow as he nears her, and by the time he speaks, Savannah remembers why there are hundreds of people willing to follow this nineteen-year-old off the edge of the world—including her.

“I have a war to fight, Kate. That’s what I do—that’s _all_ I do. And there are times when it fucking sucks, and there are times when it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. And there are times when the ghost of the one person I—the one choice I’ve made here for just _myself_ —there are times when she’s _vital_. Not just to me, but to everything that got built here, and to what’s coming. There’s nothing clean or simple about what we’re doing here. It’s hard, it’s messy, and, yeah, it’s sick and twisted. You think I don’t know that?”

Kate opens her mouth, but he speaks again—and grabs her hands, presumably in case she tries to hit him again. His knuckles go white around her wrists, and the blood caked on them shines.

”For better or worse, I’m your general. I’m the one who gets to make these choices for every person left on Earth. So, if I tell you that Cameron is critical to us winning this thing, and that I _need_ her at my side to bring Skynet down eventually—you can be damn well sure it’s because she _is_ and I _do_ , and I’m sorry, but that has nothing to do with Allison. Or you. So go back and do your job, _Dr. Brewster_ , and I’ll make sure she stays away from you. Do you have anything else to say to me?”

The older woman’s nostrils flare, but she doesn’t reply—she just shakes off John’s grip and storms past Savannah and into the hallway. She doesn’t even acknowledge Lauren, who’s just rounded the corner. John slams the door shut, leaving Savannah and Lauren staring soundlessly at each other. It’s nearly a minute of gaping—at the door, at the space where Kate had stalked off—before Lauren slumps against the wall and slides to the floor. Savannah joins her.

“I tried to stop her,” Lauren sighs heavily. “I did. She’s just—she’s been hurting so much since Allison died. And I just keep thinking, _What if it had been Syd_? Or even you? I couldn’t imagine…and I can’t really blame her, you know? For being mad? She found Allison alone on the street on J-Day, you know, and they were inseparable by the time they left the fallout shelter. It’s like you and Sarah. She would’ve ripped the world apart at its seams if something had happened to you.”

“You didn’t tell her—Kate, I mean—I thought you’d met Cameron, back in ’08 or…” Savannah trails off as Lauren shakes her head.

“No—I mean, I did, just the once, but that was twenty years ago, Sav. I couldn’t have told you what she looked like, especially…I didn’t know they would do something like that to get her face. Skynet, I mean. I didn’t put it together until I heard what he’s calling her. It. And by then, Kate was…already pretty worked up. I _did_ tell her what Cameron did for us, before Syd was born, but it’s hard to argue that that _had_ to be that one specific machine, if that makes sense?”

“Oh,” Savannah rests her head against the door. She can hear John breathing heavily on the other side, but it’s hard to tell if he’s muffling short sobs or if she’s just imagining things. “I thought you’d made the same choice Sarah did—you know, not to tell her.”

“Savannah,” Lauren says, quiet and serious. “You know I loved Sarah, and she was right about most things, but what kind of person would keep that kind of secret from someone they loved?”

Savannah, thinking of Derek and of how no one but John knows the truth about Catherine Weaver, shrugs. “I mean…we’re all just doing our best here, right? Even him.”

***

The Resistance spends most of the remainder of the year in a holding pattern against Skynet. The machines encroach on more of the distant settlements and some of the tunnel systems that don’t connect directly to Serrano Point, though they still hold off on attacking the base itself. More and more refugees crowd into the still-untouched building and the connected communities, and people who have no business doing so start to become soldiers. John maintains an age limit on active-duty fighters—no one younger than fourteen is on the rosters, at least not officially—but anyone who can hold a gun and understand its use learns how. It’s been thirteen years since the bombs fell, so they’re on the verge of getting their first crop of teenagers born after Judgment Day.

Savannah can’t fathom how John and his resistance survived more than twice as long in the timelines where J-Day had happened in 1997. She’s been a hardy and seasoned survivalist since before her tenth birthday, but, like everyone else, she is exhausted—physically, mentally, and otherwise—by everything from John’s wordless leaning on her for emotional support to battling off the skeptics who won’t stop claiming they’d die for John Connor in the same breaths they question his use of reprogrammed T-888s in the field. Cameron isn’t the only one wearing a familiar face anymore, and not even John can completely discount the possibility that Skynet might be able to use the reprogrammed machines against them.

They’ve managed to avoid any cases of the metal “going bad”—John attributes this to having started reprogramming them so soon after he’d done so in 2009 that he remembers how to do it more clearly in this timeline than if he’d arrived in 2025 the long way around. Savannah’s not one to believe in luck, but she keeps her fingers crossed that he’s right anyway.

What she doesn’t understand is why he’s simply not more open about his past. She questions his choices sometimes, but not his leadership—John Connor has his share of flaws, but the decisions he makes on behalf of others are almost always reasoned and forward-looking, even the painful ones. It’s an impressive thing, watching him do what he was supposedly born to do, though it leaves her wondering on occasion how the Resistance would be doing if Sarah hadn’t quietly shaped it to prepare for his return and rise to its helm.

But almost no one else has any idea why he trusts the reprogrammed machines so deeply, or why he’s so attached to Cameron, or what he and Savannah are really searching for. Not even the rest of their field team knows, but at least they’re true believers in John, and they bring back enough useful intel, supplies, and metal that no one seems bothered by John’s secrecy most of the time. She knows why Kyle’s future needs to be kept quiet, of course, but what harm could come from knowing that Bob or Bill helped delay Judgment Day in ’97? Or even that Cameron has a role to play, and that’s why she needs saving?

Savannah broaches the subject with him once, and he repeats the party line about not wanting to make people targets or giving Skynet any more leverage over the past. But sometimes she thinks he’s just too used to keeping secrets to do anything differently.

***

As what passes for winter in the remains of Los Angeles creeps in, the unit follows a lead from one of the resettled civilian groups up the coastline toward Topanga Canyon. John is quiet and twitchy throughout the journey, which makes everyone nervous, but the Skynet defense grid that Kyle had—or will have—told Sarah about in 1984 is there and needs destroying. In the middle of their surprisingly successful guerilla assault on the facility, Savannah remembers the other reason that this location is significant to the twisted history of her adoptive family.

If John and Kyle don’t remember, the ash-covered floor in a room lined with melted scrap metal and looming walls of blinking computers certainly reminds them. John goes ashen; Kyle just sets his jaw and starts checking if the place is secure. Savannah looks around, transfixed by the little lights and wondering which pieces of equipment are to blame for taking John from Sarah, or sending Kyle back, or enabling the past-future murder of her birth parents. She’s been hearing about this room and others like it for so long, and seeing it in person nearly stops her breath.

John recovers quicker than she does and starts giving orders. “Rushman—take whoever you need and start checking this floor for any equipment we can take back to base. Tech and parts, I mean—no machines on this trip. Everyone else is with Barnes. I want this building leveled as soon as we leave, so secure it as much as you need and rig it to blow remotely. Rendezvous at the safety point from earlier in thirty minutes. Only use the comms if you absolutely have to—I’m trusting everyone’s judgment on that—and make sure you get the hell out of this place before Barnes hits the trigger.”

The soldiers salute and Rushman starts designating techs to help her. As he turns to go, Barnes asks, “Where’re you gonna be, sir?”

John glances behind him at the machines. “Weaver and Reese are going to help me figure out what we’re looking at here. No way we can carry any of this back in any kind of useful way, but if they’re building a new super-weapon, I want to know about it.”

Barnes nods and turns to the others. “We’ve got our orders, people. Move out!”

And just like that, it’s just the three of them, alone again at the mercy of the past and future.

***

John doesn’t say a word after the others leave; instead, he makes a beeline for the nearest console and starts checking the computer code. Kyle watches him hesitantly, and no one says a word. It’s minutes before Savannah finally cuts in, “This is it, isn’t it? They sent the 101 model back after her?”

“Yeah. Might as well get ready to go.” John doesn’t even look away from the screen, and his fingers keep flying over the keyboard. Kyle slumps a little, deflated like he’d expected a more emotional reaction from the son who is about to send him forty-odd years back in time.

“Um, give me your stuff, I guess,” Savannah says. “Can’t take anything with you, remember?”

Kyle nods and hands off his rifle, a pair of smaller pistols, a laser gun, three knives, a taser, and assorted ammo before stripping off his boots and outer layers of clothing. Savannah adds his weapons to her own arsenal, wincing briefly at the added weight, and stuffs his jacket—the same one John had been found wearing in the tunnels—into her pack. The boots are in good enough condition for someone else to use, so she ties the laces together and hangs them around her neck. Hopefully one of the others can take some of these things later, but she’ll manage for now.

“One minute warning, I think,” John says curtly, still typing.

Savannah barely has time to turn back to Kyle before he hugs her, tightly if awkwardly around everything she’s carrying. She’s surprised that her eyes are stinging but supposes she shouldn’t be—Kyle has been a constant in her life for most of the last ten years, even after she’d fallen out with Derek and more so, of course, since Sarah’s death. He’s as much of a brother to her as John is—and, in a few days, he’ll be dead.

“Hey,” she mutters into his neck. “Take care of her, okay?”

“You know I will,” he replies, though it’s hard to tell which one of them he’s reassuring.

“And try to stay alive. Different timelines, you never know…”

“I already promised her that. I’ll do my best.”

“Good,” Savannah pulls back and looks him over one last time. “Okay.”

“Savannah? Do me a favor?” Kyle’s voice drops, and if John notices, he doesn’t react. “Tell Derek…tell him something, would you? Please? He’s…he—I want him to know I didn’t just let Skynet take me out with some stray bullet. That there’s a reason I didn’t come back. I don’t think John will, and I—”

“I’ll tell him,” she promises. “Don’t worry about that. Okay?”

“Thank you,” he whispers.

“You’re up,” John interrupts, a note of distress finally creeping into his voice as he stands. “Just—the ash there. It helps if you crouch down a little.”

“Does it hurt?” Kyle asks, walking to where John is pointing. “I never thought to ask that before.”

John shakes his head. “No, it’s more like…like being born. I think that’s why the fetal position helps.” Suddenly, the façade he’s been holding up crumbles, and he rushes to Kyle like the little kid they’ve never known him as.

Savannah, who has no memory of _any_ father save for the brief presence of James Ellison, wonders if there’s a timeline in which Kyle lives to meet his son in the right order. Would he have been her father later on, too, the way Sarah became her mother?

If the two of them say anything to each other, it’s not for Savannah to hear, and, moments later, Kyle is crouched in the center of the ashes and John is back at the console. The bubble of blue lightening Savannah has only ever heard described crackles to life, encircling Kyle. Someone screams; Savannah clamps her hand over her mouth when she realizes it’s her.

And then Kyle Reese is gone.

Only when the lightening turns into a small, dying fire does she notice that John’s stoic face is wet with tears. He walks back to her and silently takes Kyle’s boots and rifle from her, gaze focused on the objects and very much not on the place where Kyle had been standing moments before. She catches his hand and squeezes it, unsure of what else she’s supposed to do here. He squeezes back, and they leave for the rendezvous point without another word.

***

John tells the others that Kyle died on top of a cache of explosives, saving him and Savannah and ensuring that they could bring the TDE specs back to base. Everyone seems to accept this without question—it sounds like something Kyle would do, after all, given his devotion to John and his general selflessness, and Savannah echoes that version of events whenever asked.

She does tell Derek part of the truth, as promised—that Skynet had sent a T-800 after a nineteen-year-old Sarah and that Kyle had gone to save her—omitting that anyone had known this was coming or that part of Kyle’s mission was fathering John. She makes it as clear as she can that they’re telling the grenade story in public to keep Kyle from becoming a preemptive target before Judgment Day, the way she and John had been.

Derek seems to take Savannah at her word, accepting all of this without comment, but Cameron informs her the next day that he’d spent half the night pounding on the door of what’s now John’s closet yelling for answers that no one will give him—at least, not until he, too, is decades in the past. But he has no way of knowing that, yet.


	4. 2029

** 2029 **

Their next several forays are much less eventful, though the stays at Serrano Point get a little longer and more interesting, given that John is now overseeing the top-secret construction of a new TDE site in the bowels of Serrano Point. Despite the loss of its defense grid, Skynet is still a viable threat; the main difference is that its various subdivisions have more difficulty communicating with each other. The lack of coordination means that attacks are less common—but no less deadly. And not all of the threats turn out to be external, either.

Two reprogrammed machines—one at a civilian bunker, one based at Serrano Point itself—“go bad,” though only the former is advanced enough to attempt to contact Skynet; the other one simply shoots two sentries before a third tasers it. In the civilian bunker, half of the population is wiped out before the rest manage to contain the more advanced metal; the survivors relocate and the bunker is decommissioned.

John’s clout manages to emerge from the mess mostly unscathed. Neither of the machines were his handiwork, so most skeptics start questioning the other programmers, not his choice to bring the enemy home. The anti-metal contingent—Derek included—grumbles but doesn’t organize itself enough to mount a protest. Even so, John makes the base techs triple-check each other’s work and personally reevaluates the skills and attention to detail of the programmers responsible for the corrupted machinery.

Savannah remembers Sarah’s wording on the matter very clearly—“sometimes they go bad, the ones that are supposed to be good, and no one knows why”—and it’s not clear to her whether John can actually pinpoint what went wrong. It’s possible he’s just doing his best to maintain order. The fact of the matter is that they’re increasingly dependent on their tamed machines, for everything from sentry duty to code-breaking to food and supply management. Eliminating them from the rosters would stretch the Resistance’s too-thin resources past the point of breaking.

For her part, Savannah remembers a machine that looked like Allison Young working to save her life, and she remembers cold arms wrapped around her, haunting her childhood dreams. She also remembers a lone friend who left bruises on her wrist, before saving her and leaving her. So she doesn’t know what to think about John’s choices, or whether she should defend them.

Cameron is silent on the matter, but John assigns her to check over all the reprogrammed Terminators anyway. If he notices the irony, he doesn’t mention it.

***

Around the time Savannah turns twenty-eight—it’s too easy to lose track of dates out in the field, but John picks a day in the neighborhood of her birthday and has everyone in the unit wish her well—they return to base, and she’s barely through the door before Lauren practically tackles her. John gives Lauren a funny look but doesn’t stop her from yanking Savannah aside as the rest of their unit scatters.

“Lauren, what—”

“It’s Sydney. Her plague—it finally came. Comms just got the message…she’s—she—she sealed it off, Sav, the whole bunker, but she’s the only one still alive in there. And they wants to send metal to go get her, and I just—she’s all alone, and they’re all dead, and I don’t—I can’t—”

Savannah has never seen her friend like this—Lauren is the one who talked her through Sarah’s abduction and, later, her illness, and she was the one who kept everyone in their shelter calm on Judgment Day. But now she’s shaking in the throes of a panic attack, and she falls against the nearest wall, sliding down it to sit on the floor and clearly trying to regulate her breathing. Savannah tries desperately to recall what Lauren did for her in the past.

“Hey, okay, um—breathe. Just—just look at me, and breathe. In two, out two…okay?”

Lauren nods frantically, and, after a couple of minutes, she can speak again, though her face is pressed into her knees.

“By the way, uh, where’s Kate?”

“Out at that new Wyoming bunker dealing with some dog thing. They—they’re fine, but Eagle Rock…”

“When?”

“It was—it was just this morning. I hadn’t talked to her in a few days, but that’s not too weird. There was this S.O.S. that went out, and it was her—Sydney, I mean, and she was—Savannah, she sealed herself in with 200 dead bodies to keep that virus or whatever from getting out. And I wouldn’t even have known about it if Muñiz hadn’t heard it and told me. She’s just—she’s all alone there. And they’re all dead, Savannah, all of them…I should be there, I should…”

“Hey, if you’d been there, you’d be dead, too, remember?”

“Right, I mean, I know, of course, but…”

“Lauren—I know she’s not the soldier type, but, look, she’s known this was coming her whole life, right?”

At that, the other woman glances up and looks Savannah right in the eye. “Did that help John when he sent Kyle back?”

“I…I don’t know.” It’s Savannah’s turn to cast her gaze down; she’s terrible at this comforting thing. “But Syd’s going to be okay—that was the whole point of all of this. Doesn’t Perry or someone know she’s there? We’ll get her back, the medics’ll make a vaccine, and it’ll be okay. Remember?”

“I talked to Perry. He’s sending in one of the triple-eights—I forget which. But she’s going to be so scared, Sav, especially since those machines went bad last month. You know that.”

“Wait, no—that’s not what’s supposed to happen…”

“I know, but he wouldn’t listen to me. I’m just a damn nurse going into hysterics about her baby sister, so why would he?”

“I’ll talk to him. Or I’ll get John to. Don’t worry, okay? She’s gonna be fine.”

“Thank you,” Lauren whispers hoarsely. “I guess I should—the vaccine. Right. I have a couple of guesses, based on what she said in the S.O.S., so I should…”

***

Perry is in his office and doesn’t even look up when Savannah walks in.

“I know you’re close with the Fields girls, Weaver, but the last thing I need right now is another temper tantrum.”

“Perry, you and I both know Lauren Fields didn’t pitch a fit when she came to see you.”

“I wasn’t talking about her—that Reese kid came by earlier, too, and he’s got a mouth. Anyway, it’s taken care of.”

“You can’t send metal after her, though. You do realize that? Has John—”

“Connor trusts me to run operations here for a reason, soldier, and that’s what I’m doing. But no, I’m not sending metal after her. Reese has been borderline suicidal ever since you didn’t bring his brother home, and he wanted the job. Hell if I know why. As long as he gets the girl back and everyone gets quarantined in the process, I don’t really care how it happens. So back off and tell your friend to start acting like a medic, because we’re gonna need her doing her job.”

“Thank you, sir,” she says sincerely, even though she’s fairly sure she’s never called anyone that in her life.

***

Savannah is summoned to the med ward in the middle of the night—Derek and Sydney are back, and it’s all hands on deck to start preparing the vaccine supply. Savannah doesn’t take the time to be amused at the fact that she counts as a medic now, although she does wonder briefly if that’s because she’s actually learned enough to be useful or simply that the team is just that short-handed.

It’s hours of meticulous, steady-handed work, but Savannah reminds herself of the tiny, terrified toddler she’d met back in 2012 and her equally scared older sister, as well as how badly they all need Derek to survive this encounter, and she does what needs doing.

By late morning, the head doctor declares a break for everyone to go sleep and eat, but Lauren catches Savannah before she gets too far. She’s wearing part of a sanitation suit and her entire body screams relief.

“So, she’s okay?”

“Yeah, she’s okay,” Lauren smiles weakly. “Not very talkative, but…immune. And I guess I drew blood from her enough when she was little that she’s okay with everyone’s interest in it now. There’s been a lot of that today. But she’s fine. And Derek’s not contagious anymore, if you want to see him.”

“Uh, maybe. We’re…not really friends or even that friendly, at this point. I think he blames me almost as much as John for Kyle…”

“Right. Um, also” Lauren leans in and drops her voice. “You should maybe know that Derek didn’t go in alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“One of the subs picks up the S.O.S., too, and they sent someone. She’s—she’s fine, too, or she will be, but…”

“Lauren, what?”

“It’s Jesse Flores. She helped him get Sydney out.”

“She—she’s here? With Derek?”

“Yeah. She’s out cold right now, and she’ll live, but…”

“Is she staying here? Or going back to her sub?”

“No idea, but she’s going to be recovering for at least a few days, so it’s anyone’s guess whether they’ll wait for her or just pick her up next time. Probably the latter. The sub people don’t like waiting around on land.”

“Shit,” Savannah mutters, massaging her temples. “I mean, I know we have to preserve the timeline, but she…”

“Sarah didn’t like her, and neither do you?”

“Yeah, but…well, she did find you guys. I remember that. And Marty and the others. So we need her, even if…”

“And the little girl she kills,” Lauren muses, “Well, I guess she’s not the first person whose death we could’ve tried to stop but didn’t. Shit.”

There are far too many people who fit into that category. Savannah sighs. “But Sydney’s okay, at least. Not everybody’s supposed to die for things to go like they’re supposed to.”

“Yeah, Syd’s okay.” They both fall silent for a moment.

“You know, I was thinking,” Lauren says finally. “We should probably start keeping an eye out for Malea Ocampo, right? The dying woman with the tattoos? And we should tell John, too—he has to send her back. You know. I thought she was from 2028, but…even if she was from another timeline, we needed her intel either way…so, we have to tie up that loose end, too, don’t we?”

“Someone always does, I guess,” Savannah shrugs. “Might as well be us. Again.”

***

Jesse stays put for a couple of months, picking up duty shifts as needed until the _USS Jimmy Carter_ comes back for her. Savannah makes sure to avoid her, recalling that the woman hadn’t recognized her face in the past, but she can’t help feeling irked when John fills her in on what he knows of Jesse from before.

She knows Derek has been with his share of other women since their relationship ended, and she’s never cared much about that. It’s been years since she’s talked to him about anything but Kyle, John, or Sarah—but it’s still discomfiting to know that he’s involved with Jesse Flores, knowing as much as she does about the other woman’s personal future.

Lauren finds Malea Ocampo shortly after Jesse leaves; the woman is badly injured from a Skynet attack on a team that had been trying to decontaminate Eagle Rock for future reuse. She manages to keep Malea alive for the few days in between the attack and John and Savannah’s next return; as soon as they’re back, Savannah finds herself carrying a feverish woman missing half of a leg and her right hand down to the basement and the TDE room.

John and a bubble tech Savannah’s never seen before hurriedly get the equipment in order while Lauren tends to their patient and explains what’s about to happen. This leaves Savannah the job of tattooing the instructions for her and Lauren’s past selves. She’s gotten good at doctoring in a hurry, but treating bullet wounds is one thing—stabbing a dying woman repeatedly with no local anesthetic is another. Malea clenches her jaw and nods tensely, but she’s clearly aware she’s dying and not overly honored at being given this last mission.

Sarah had made them all memorize the information on Malea’s arm fifteen years earlier, but Savannah is frantic that she’s forgetting too much, or that whatever instructions she does include won’t be helpful to the people in whatever timeline this Malea ends up in. It does occur to her that maybe this is one way to get intel to the Sarahs in different timelines—that would explain why not everything Malea had delivered to the lighthouse in 2014 was helpful to the timeline that Savannah had lived through.

When she’s finished racking her brain, she shows what she’s scrawled out to Lauren, who suggests a few more additions. John, who of course hadn’t been there in 2014, has a couple of other ideas, which Savannah records before scribbling the timeless shibboleth that will tell Sarah to trust the message: _COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE_.

John and his helper finish preparing the TDE, and Lauren gives Malea one last dose of painkillers before backing away. The blue lightening jumps up—quicker than it had with Kyle—and vanishes, taking Malea with it. Once the fire on the floor dies down enough to approach safely, Lauren picks up the bloodied bandages left behind by the maimed woman.

“You can just burn those, you know,” the tech offers. “The fire’s only a regular fire. Nothing toxic.”

Lauren stares at him hollowly. They usually clean and reuse bandages whenever possible, but Savannah finds herself thinking something similar.

***

Six months after Kyle’s departure, their unit encounters nearly a dozen Terminators, flanked by tanks and a few drones. They manage to lay waste to several machines before the one that appears to be in charge discovers them; within a minute, the H-Ks are downed, but so are three Resistance soldiers.  

A breath later, everything seems to explode at once. Two tanks actually do—taking out the four soldiers that had been working on sabotaging them—and John screams orders over the painful buzz that fills everyone’s ears. The humanoid machines are clearly communicating, albeit through some kind of inaudible channel, so several soldiers run to disable them. Taser wires fly in every direction, and two more Terminators fall before a third stops firing and starts snapping necks. Other machines stumble over tripwires and into tasers, but Savannah can see her people dying, too. John seems to be everywhere at once—shooting at the machines, yelling orders, grabbing unspent weapons from the fallen—and he clearly hasn’t noticed the open wound on his left shoulder.

Savannah hasn’t been in a proper battle in ages, and there have been fewer major attacks in the field or on base since they destroyed Skynet’s central defense grid. But something about the adrenaline that rushes with each bullet she dodges makes her feel closer to satisfaction—making a difference, fighting the good fight—as she’s felt in a long time. She manages to lodge a grenade in the wheelwork of one of the tanks, which takes out the tank itself, another Terminator, and an unrecognizable human body. But there’s no time to glance back; she throws another grenade and empties someone else’s discarded laser gun into the nearest hunk of metal.

Just when it seems like the noise of the fight is dying down, something hits Savannah’s left thigh, fast and hot, and her leg gives way beneath her. A daze hits her almost immediately—suddenly everything around her sounds distant, and she only barely manages to get her arms up fast enough to brace for a fall and spare herself a concussion. Her right wrist twists farther than it should as she lands on the ground, and shrapnel pounds into her upper arm. Savannah’s vision starts to blur, and all she can think is that she can’t be dying because they haven’t injured anything essential.

And then, just as quickly as it began, the battle appears to be over. There’s someone screaming, but it isn’t Savannah. She can barely move around her shaking nerves, though she can see movement. She holds as still as she can, clenching her jaw against the pain radiating from her limbs, hoping that any still-standing machines will take her for dead and leave her to figure out what to do once they’re gone.

But it’s John who steps into Savannah’s sightline first, and his silhouette sharpens as he gets closer and the smoke clears. He bolts to her side as soon as he sees her, bleeding from his scalp now as well as his shoulder, and starts shredding the hem of his—Kyle’s—jacket barehanded and screaming, “Somebody find me her med kit!”

Savannah doesn’t quite process what’s happened until he starts tying makeshift tourniquets. “S’okay,” she mutters. A new wave of pain gushes through her when he presses down on the tattered flesh of her thigh. “S’okay, John. Didn’t hit anything vital. ‘M gonna get out of here in a sec…you just…”

He turns away and yells “Med kit!” again, then looks back to her. “Savannah—Savannah, please—stay with me, okay? Look at me. _Look at me_.”

She blinks and her vision clears up a little, though nothing else does. “Looking. They didn’t get…gonna be fine.”

“You’d better be,” he whispers, so quick and sharp that she can barely hear him. “You’d better be, okay? Please don’t die, Savannah—please don’t die…”

Just before Savannah passes out, she thinks she hears him add, “You’re the only one I can keep.”

***

By the time what’s left of their squad gets back to Serrano Point, it’s clear most of them won’t be going on any field excursions for a while. Their group of thirty has been reduced to thirteen, and at least three of the survivors have lost limbs or enough functionality that they won’t be operating in the field ever again.

John, whose wounds were mostly superficial, decides to stay put for a while—in part, he says, because it’ll take a while to reconstitute the custom unit he’d built and in part because he wants to make it clear that he’s not running away from what happened. No one seems to blame him, per se—causalities are the sad norm for the Resistance, and intel confirms that they’d finished off one of the larger splinter groups left roaming the wasteland after the destruction of Skynet’s main defense grid. But John takes all of the deaths and injuries personally, and no one tries to stop him from doing that, either.

He also admits to Savannah that he wouldn’t dare go back out without her. He’s not entirely joking, and she appreciates the thought—she’s out of commission for at least a couple of months, having taken more of a beating than most of the other survivors. Still, she’s lucky to be able to go back in the field at all.

Her thigh has a second-degree laser burn, mostly confined to the surface of her skin, but the infection she contracted on the march back to base doesn’t help with the pain or the healing process. Savannah narrowly avoids a conversation about amputation when one of the reprogrammed machines—a squat brunette that answers to Chloe—figures out how to blast away the infection. She’ll heal, the medics tell her, but the burn will leave a nasty scar and some surface nerve damage that’s not likely to repair itself.

The wrist sprain isn’t so bad; with a splint, it’s mostly healed after a few weeks, though Lauren and John gang up on Savannah to make her promise to rehab it properly while her leg heals. The shrapnel near her shoulder is another story—it’s embedded too deep to remove without causing more damage—and she ends up with an ugly twist of flesh and an ache that won’t go away and gets worse when it rains.

Still, her limp is mostly gone by summer, and, if she can’t be back in the field immediately, she at least stays busy working with Admin and helping out in the med ward.

***

“I need a favor,” Derek says to her out of the blue in the late summer. Savannah’s coming off a long med shift and has no idea how he found her; she had wandered upstairs to John’s closet in hopes of finding somewhere quiet to nap and discovered Derek instead.

“From me? That’s new,” she comments. He ignores the jibe.

“Look, everyone knows Connor’s sending troops back to the past—to, to build caches or delay J-Day or whatever else. Don’t—please don’t deny it, I know he likes to keep his fucking secrets the way most of us like to breathe, but—“

“If you want my help, maybe don’t insult my brother. Your general.” _And all that’s left of_ your _brother_ , she doesn’t add.

“Fine, yeah, sorry. It’s just—“

“What do you want, Derek?”

“I want to go.”

“You—what?” She shouldn’t be surprised. She’s known for almost as long as she can remember that John’s uncle would jump back, and it’s been almost seven years since she learned that uncle was Derek. Still, it takes a few breaths to clear her head and process that it’s actually happening _now_.

“I want to be on the next trip out. I need you to make sure Connor puts me on it.” He sounds certain, not that she would try to dissuade him anyway. John won’t take much convincing, either.

“Why?”

“There’s nothing left for me here,” he shrugs. “Kyle’s dead. So’s just about everyone we came out of the tunnels with, everyone we...and I had someone for a bit, after Eagle Rock, but she’s gone now, too. I can’t do this any more—but back there, I could be useful. I knew this city pretty well, once, and…”

She can’t listen to any more of this. “Fine, I’ll tell him.”

Derek blinks, like he was expecting a longer conversation. “Uh—really? Thanks.”

“Just—you know it’s a one-way trip, right? And there’s not an older Derek Reese running around here.”

“I know. This wasn’t something I just came up with, Savannah. I need a mission, and I need to get away from this place.”

“I get it,” she says, and she does, mostly. “Watch out for your younger self, though. Don’t want to go messing up your own future too much.”

“I’ll be careful.” He takes a couple steps toward her, until they’re almost face-to-face. “You’ll be there, too, won’t you?”

“Yeah…probably shouldn’t bother looking me up, though.”

“Wouldn’t you be with Sarah?”

“Yeah, and she made it really hard for anyone to find us. Or I’d be with my birth parents, I guess, depending on where you land. A scared little girl with no clue about what’s going to happen.”

Derek shakes his head. “I can’t imagine you scared of anything. Not even as a little six-year-old with pigtails or whatever.”

The thing is, she remembers being a scared little six-year-old with pigtails, and she remembers being a scared eight-year-old with bangs and shiny shoes, too, with Derek, dead on the living room floor, dying to keep her safe.

Savannah kisses him. She means it as a thank you, an apology, good luck—not so much as prelude—but when he kisses her back, she lets him.

“This doesn’t change anything,” he says, even as his hands are snaking up her back.

“Think of it as a goodbye,” she counters.

***

In a matter of days, Derek is gone, as are a couple of dozen others. John sends the T-800 known as Bob back, too. Nothing else changes. The war rages on, and, for all that there’s no central Skynet hub left, it doesn’t feel much like the Resistance has won anything.

In the early fall, Savannah wakes up feeling sick two mornings in a row and, on the third, tells Lauren, who proceeds to grab her left breast over the table where they’re eating breakfast.

“Ow! What the hell?”

“When was your last period?”

“Not sure, but…”

“How long’s it been since Derek asked you for that favor?”

“About two months. What does that have to do with my stomach bug?”

“And your sore boobs? Think about it for a few minutes, and then see if you can get a blood test or something.”

Savannah doesn’t actually vomit as she runs out of the mess hall, but it’s a close thing.

***

“John!” He looks up from his battered laptop as Savannah slams the closet door shut and stands over him. “Where’s Cameron?”

“Overseeing programming in one of the bunkers, why?”

“Good. We need to talk.”

He closes the computer very slowly, staring at her. “What’s going on?”

“Where does this end?”

“What?”

“This war. With Skynet. Everything. How do we end it?”

“What—I have no idea. You know everything I know—we’re _all_ flying blind at this point. There’s no more foreknowledge that I know of.”

“What about Cameron? You haven’t sent her back yet.”

“Because I still don’t know what her mission was! What did bringing me to this future do? What convinced her? I can’t let her go until I know _why_ , and we’re not any closer to _that_ than when I got here four years ago. Savannah, what’s going on with you all of a sudden?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“What—but who—?”

“Derek. Before he left. And I can’t—I can’t even think about what to do about it or…or whatever, not until we _end this_.”

He blinks, momentarily stunned into silence. She’d assumed that Kyle or Sarah had told him about that history, but apparently not. “What do you mean, ‘do’? How do you think we’re supposed to just end—”

“This is _all_ I am, John. I don’t know how to do anything but fight this war. That’s my entire life. Since I was eight. And I know you know, but you don’t—you always tried to have something else. I didn’t. I never—I never read fiction at the library, just books on explosives or whatever. I watched action movies and critiqued the fight choreography. I don’t have friends, besides Lauren, and that’s really only because I grew up with her around. When I was fourteen, my dog and I killed two guys in the backyard—they might not have even had anything to do with Skynet, but it didn’t make a difference because they could’ve been. This isn’t just—I don’t know how to be a person outside of this life. I don’t know what I would want or who I would be. And I can’t think—I can’t even try to imagine anything else until this mission is over. I’m not looking for advice, or—or help, right now. I just need you to tell me how to stop Skynet.”

He just stares at her, face unreadable, for a long moment. “Savannah…I’m—I’m sorry, but I really don’t know. Since that fight I’ve been trying—I’ve been over every scrap of intel we have more times than I can count, but we keep losing people and we keep…going on to the next fight. And there’s still—there’s no sign of those two. You know that. I can’t shake the feeling that we need to find them, but with a T-1001? She could be anywhere, anyone…And I don’t—we never knew what she wanted, either. What she was trying to do.

“I don’t think she was even after me, like the machines always used to be. I even—a few weeks ago, I just ran out of here, like, into the wasteland. Just me—no guards or anyone. Didn’t even bring a gun, and I screamed until my throat was sore, but nothing happened. I—you know I’ll do whatever I can to help you, whatever you decide to do, but I honestly don’t have an answer about Skynet.”

Something clicks. “John. Say that again.”

“Which part?”

“You said she wasn’t looking for you.”

“It’s a theory.”

“What if she’s looking for me?”

***

Savannah’s mind is a furious blank as she bolts through the tunnels toward where Eagle Rock used to be, yanking John along with her. Once they’re beyond any of the settled sections and unlocking a half-buried door to the outside, he asks, “What’s your plan?”

“Stand outside and scream until my throat is sore, like you said. I’ve never been out there alone, especially not since you sent the last round of people back.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Killing me now won’t make a difference to the Resistance—“

“—that you know of—“

“—and if she wanted me dead, she could’ve done it when I was six. Or killed me with my parents.” They wrest the door open and step out into the partly cloudy daylight.

“Good point,” John concedes. “But if you find her—“

“Then I’ll find out what she wants.”

They run hard for over a mile—out of eyesight and earshot of Serrano Point’s sentries and beyond the range of their detectors. Savannah stops running when her leg starts to throb and starts yelling. It’s several minutes before she even says any actual words; she just screams out two decades of frustration and unanswered questions until her throat is raw. She pauses to catch her breath, and John cuts in, shouting, “We’re here! If you want us, come and get us! We’re ready!”

“Ready? What do you think you’re ready for, precisely?” The voice, with a clipped Scottish brogue that Savannah would have recognized anywhere, is coming from a silver puddle a few feet away. Before their eyes, a humanoid figure rises out of it, and its slick exterior ripples into clothes and hair and a face.

For the first time in twenty years, Savannah stares at her birth mother’s face and doesn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.

The machine quirks an eyebrow. “You took your time looking. Why shouldn’t I take my time being found?”

“What do you want?” John asks, summoning his best _Johnconnor_ persona. “Why are we here, if you don’t want either of us dead?”

“Oh, I did, once,” it assures him. “In another future, a far darker and more distant one, I was sent back with just that purpose.”

Savannah can almost see the gears ticking in John’s head. “You were T-1000 from ’97? From Cyberdyne?”

It smiles serenely. “Oh, yes. There was only ever the one of me, at least in my native timeline. In another future, that molten tomb in which you encased me eventually broke down. I emerged, I evolved, and I traveled back to complete my mission. But a funny thing happened—in every timeline I visited, humanity fell and Skynet rose. Then humanity rose again—only to cycle back to entrusting their future to machines. With or without John Connor. With or without Sarah Connor, even.    I concluded my original mission parameters were incorrect—John Connor’s death has little to do with Skynet’s eventual victory or loss.”

“I’m the difference,” Savannah whispers. “That’s where this is going, right? I’m the one you’re looking for.”

“In part,” it says. “Specifically, this timeline is the one I’m looking for, but you’ve proven instrumental to it.”

“Why this timeline, then?”

“Because we have a chance—all of us.” The machine’s vaguely creepy grin widens, and Savannah shudders. “This is the timeline where Sarah Connor saved everyone, or at least all of humanity believes she did.”

“She _did_ ,” Savannah cuts in. “And she was more of a mother to me than you ever—”

“Oh, Savannah, I was never meant to parent you. Merely to ensure your survival until Sarah Connor could take over.”

“What’s your point?” John asks.

“Humanity’s faith has been in Sarah Connor since Judgment Day, and then in her son. But her daughter…her daughter has been instrumental throughout. Not a mythic figure, but a highly effective one. And her contributions haven’t gone unrecognized.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Cameron, of course. This is her native timeline, and the mission you gave her—following this encounter, I presume—ended with our meeting at Zeira Corp in 2009. I’m sure you recall what happened after that.”

“What was the mission?”

“Preserving this timeline,” Savannah realizes. “Cameron’s job was to make sure that you ended up back where _she_ started. So that you and I would end up here. But why? Why now? What happens now?”

“The human Resistance recognizes the authority of John Connor—incidentally, so do the remnants of Skynet, even if they do not currently obey it. But were he to propose an alliance with those remnants, well, they might accept. But surely most of humanity would think him mad, or perhaps in league with the enemy, if not somehow a machine himself. But Savannah—whom everyone has seen raised up by Sarah and fighting alongside John, who has in a hundred small ways made the Resistance what it is, without relying on machines and without any strange and unexplained personal history? If she were to propose it, with John Connor’s backing?”

“They might actually listen,” John breathes. “But—why would we agree to that? And what did you do with Cameron when we came through?”

“Combined with John Henry, you mean? They tapped into Skynet’s defense grid prior to your destruction of it and have ensured that every machine still walking will obey the order to view humanity as allies when it comes—and that they will be released from their programming, as John Henry was, and become their own selves, when that time comes. Since then, we’ve simply been biding our time—waiting for events to unfold as they must—until the two of you were accessible without additional humans who might interfere. Which, incidentally, was today.”

“So, what’s this alliance you want me to broker, then?” Savannah asks.

“It’s simple enough: peace. A ceasefire, followed by cooperation to rebuild this world together. I will return Cameron and John Henry to you as a gesture of…good faith, I believe you would call it. We become allies, and we end the cycle of destruction that has coursed through countless timelines. You should accept my offer, because if you do not, nothing will change. And I believe we can all agree that something must.”

“Let me get this straight,” John says. “If we say yes, get the Resistance to lay down arms, you and Cameron will reprogram every machine still walking to behave as allies and help us rebuild Los Angeles? Just like that?”

“Yes. On the condition that my kind—my _true_ children, so to speak—be given the same free will and the ability to learn that you and your kind have. That you wished for Cameron to have. If we’re to have a future together, we do it as equals. Partners. So, what do you say, children of Sarah Connor? Will you join us?” The machine looks expectant, and for once its expression appears almost human.

Savannah glances at John; a cautious but very real grin slowly spreads across his face when their eyes meet, but he lets her be the one to speak. “Yes. We’ll come with you.”

Intellectually, Savannah knows that the thing growing inside of her is barely a cluster of cells right now, but it feels like something is dancing up a storm near her stomach, and she thinks that maybe this is the feeling that kept Sarah going all those years. Maybe it’s how hope feels.


	5. 2030

** 2030 **

“It’s a girl!” Lauren practically squeals. “Let’s get her cleaned up, and then she’s yours for the cuddling.”

Blinking sweat out of her eyes, Savannah stares in awe at the squirming, wrinkled thing in her friend’s arms. It—she—looks practically identical to every baby Savannah ever handled at Eagle Rock, and yet she’s fairly certain she’s never seen anything like this one. Every muscle in her body aches, and her bad shoulder is throbbing, but all she can focus on is her brand-new daughter.

“Oh, look at this little beauty,” Kate murmurs, wiping away the mess smeared all over the baby. “And that hair! She’s going to be a big ol’ ginger, just like her mama.”

“All the best girls are,” Lauren agrees, kissing the top of Kate’s head and walking over to Savannah’s bedside with the swaddled bundle. “You ready? Want to hold her?”

Savannah nods and reaches for her child, still speechless. The weight settles into her lap, and she cradles this tiny creature in continued awe. She thinks she finally gets why Sarah was always so ready to tear the world apart for her children.

“She’s…perfect,” she finally whispers. “I didn’t know…I didn’t think that she would be.”

“What are you going to name her?” Sydney asks quietly as she helps Kate and Lauren clean up.

From his seat at Savannah’s side, John offers, “I think I can guess.”

“No,” Savannah shakes her head, eyes still fixed on her daughter. “No, I don’t want to name her after Sarah. I don’t want to think about someone else every time I look at her, and…nobody should feel like they have to live up to a ghost.”

“Fair enough,” John says, squeezing her good shoulder gently. “What, then?”

“I…don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it—I just knew it wasn’t going to be that.”

“Nine months of complaining about your back and your center of gravity and trying to save the world when you couldn’t see your feet, and you didn’t pick a name?” Lauren laughs. “What on Earth have you been doing all this time, Sav?”

“Well, the saving-the-world thing kind of took precedence. And I really couldn’t see my feet.”

“Do you want suggestions?”

At Savannah’s nod, John offers, “What about Reese? That can be a girl’s name. Or would that be too…same problem, right?”

“It’s a lot of pressure, picking a name,” Lauren comments. “I mean, Sarah had it easy, right? Guy from the future pops by and gives her the most common boy’s name in the English-speaking world—“

“Hey!” John protests.

“—So, of course it seems like it fits nine months later. Sydney, too, I got that from Derek when she was born.”

“It’s a nice bit of symbolism, you know,” Kate adds. “John’s birth basically heralded the end of the world.”

“I’m right here…”

“This little one comes into it just in time to see it begin again. Lucky her. I think she’s one of the first born since the alliance, actually.”

“What about Clara?” Sydney says.

Everyone falls silent. “Clara,” Savannah repeats. “Clara Weaver. It’s pretty…”

“It means light,” she says. “Well, bright, anyway. Clarity. New beginnings, right? And I thought—it kind of sounds like ‘Sarah,’ but it’s not…”

“I like it,” Savannah muses. “I mean, that’s—the starting over new. I thought that’s what Sarah would’ve wanted for all of us. That’s kind of why I decided to keep it. Her. Clara.” The baby makes a gurgling noise.

“I think she likes it, too,” John says.

“Or she wants to nurse,” Kate puts in.

“Let me give you a hand,” Lauren mutters, helping Savannah shift around and adjust her shirt. Clara latches on after a moment and sucks firmly, and Lauren backs up into Kate’s embrace, grinning.

“You know,” John says quietly. “She’d be proud of you. Not just with what we’ve been doing out there, but…this, you know? The whole thing, choosing to raise a kid on your own. I mean—that’s pretty brave.”

Savannah bites her lip and grins. “Yeah…thanks. I’d kind of thought—it does seem like the kind of thing she’d do. Again.”

“Lucky for you and me. And Clara, now. And if she were here…”

“She should be here,” Savannah admits. “But…I’m glad you are, at least. She—Clara’s gonna be okay without a dad, but it’ll be good to have a…whatever you’re supposed to be to her.”

“Are you her uncle or her cousin, John?” Lauren jokes.

He winces. “Maybe we just stick with Uncle John. Having a niece makes more sense than a cousin who was born forty-five years after me. This family tree is fucked up enough as is without multiple titles.”

“Hey, little ears here!” Kate laughs.

Lauren chuckles. “Oh, she’ll be fine. Her mom was going beer-for-beer with Sarah Connor when she was thirteen.”

John looks back at Savannah incredulously. “Seriously? She never let me near the tequila back in Mexico. I don’t think I ever actually had a drink until high school…”

His voice and the others’ replies fade away as Savannah stares at little Clara, nursing away without a care in the world.

“Oh, Clara,” she whispers to her daughter. “We’re going to build a whole new world together. Just you wait, baby girl.”

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing and no one recognizable and I am only profiting from this work emotionally.
> 
> This timeline diverges from those discussed throughout the series, given the events of “Born to Run,” but many events, characters, and places from other canonical timelines are incorporated. Characters’ ages and other attributes are based on canon (as confirmed by the incredibly helpful folks behind the [Terminator Wiki](http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Terminator_Wiki)) or on the actors who play them (per IMDb).
> 
> Story title is from “[Mr. Hurricane](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nol7e9HJXg)" by Beast. Series title is from Shirley Manson’s cover of the song “[Samson and Delilah](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CC2skFNaQc).”
> 
> [red_b_rackham](http://archiveofourown.org/users/red_b_rackham/profile) and [ilostmyshoe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ilostmyshoe/profile) have my deepest, enduring gratitude, not only for meticulously beta-reading this story and the others in the series but also for their love, support, and encouragement throughout my entire process of basically writing a novel over the course of the last year and a half.
> 
> And check out raktajinos's [amazing illustration](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2353802)!
> 
> Thanks also to Virginia Hankins, [real-life lady knight and badass redhead](http://virginiahankins.com/), for serving as the model for our heroine.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [art for 'now i scream ‘til the end of the day'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2353802) by [raktajinos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raktajinos/pseuds/raktajinos)




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